Baptized in Blood
by bitshoptyler
Summary: Naruto is attacked one day, and while he is unconscious, Kyuubi steps in with some assistance. See how this affects Naruto's shinobi career, and the Fate of the World. Somewhat stronger Naruto, Smarter Naruto, NaruHina.
1. Baptism

** This is my first try at writing any sort of story, so, um, constructive criticism is always appreciated. Or flames, or any other things that bump my review count up, and make me a better writer at the same time.**

** EDIT: This story was up for a while, before I took it down for extensive reworking (more details at the end.)**

** Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but you probably already guessed that.**

Baptized in Blood

"I'm gunna kill the demon brat!", the drunken civilian yelled, brandishing a knife that, until yesterday, had lived a peaceful life in a kitchen drawer. "He killed my wife and son, I'm gunna kill him."

Naruto Uzumaki was running for his life, away from the insane man bent on ending his life. His birthday had started out pretty decently, with no new "messages" written on the walls of the apartment complex he lived in, and he even managed to start off with a good breakfast (one not composed of ramen.) The day took a turn for the worse after meeting the old man. He had a bad feeling about him from the moment he started following him, sending off large amounts of Killing Intent, at least for a civilian.

The man caught up to him when he left the market district of Konoha, turning on to a side street to head for the residential district. Once the amount of people around had lessened some, he was able to see that the man was clearly following _him_. He unfortunately, did not consider the fact that continuing to head to more secluded areas could be dangerous for his health, and instead of turning back around, started moving towards his apartment at a slightly faster pace.

The man continued following, also at a slightly faster pace, until, unable to take the ominous feeling anymore, Naruto burst into a sprint for a side street. Naruto being fairly young, and not as fast as an older boy would've been, was not able to outrun the man following him. He caught up to Naruto, almost tripping over him when he shoved him to the ground. Once Naruto was down, he pulled the knife out of his belt, brandishing it in front of the boy.

"Guess what you get for messing with my family, demon brat!", the man said, still holding the knife unsteadily.

"I haven't d-done anything to your f-family, old man, h-how would I have done s-something?", Naruto asked, stuttering in his nervousness.

"Shuddup, brat, you know what you did.", the old man replied.

"No, I d-don't.", replied Naruto, still nervous, but slightly curious as well.

"Oh, don't think it's important that my family's dead because of you, do you? Didn't notice them out of all the other ones?", the man replied, eyes tearing slightly now.

"Ummm, n-no?", replied Naruto, more than slightly perturbed.

"So, you do remember, don't you?", said the old man, determination steeling his face.

"Ummm...", said a puzzled Naruto.

"Well, it doesn't matter what you remember, because you'll come out of this alley in pieces."

"Now die!", said the man, shoving the knife downward into Naruto's abdomen.

Naruto screamed in pain as the knife was pulled out of his body, doing a considerable amount of damage. The man repositioned the knife to cut Naruto's face, when Naruto started struggling. "Stop that, or I'll have to drag this out longer.", the man said, as Naruto got a lucky bite in to the man's wrist. The man let out a hoarse cry, probably too drunk to feel much pain from the bite anyway, but Naruto's sharper-than-average canines did their job, drawing a large amount of blood from the assailant's arm. The man let out a cry, and hit Naruto on the side of the head with his free hand, stunning him long enough to get his arm out of Naruto's mouth. "What the fuck!", the man yelled as he pulled his arm free from Naruto's mouth, tearing a chunk out of his wrist in the process. "I'm gunna kill you for that!"

The man continued hitting Naruto with the knife, turning his once-blond hair a matted brown, and spilling blood everywhere. Naruto fell against the wall, stunned, and finally succumbed to unconsciousness.

The man tried to continue hitting Naruto with the knife, but something stopped him, a layer of red between him and Naruto that he could not get through. "What's going on..."

Naruto woke up about ten seconds later, still slightly stunned, but somehow, grinning maniacally, and with slitted red eyes.

"**You shouldn't have done that.**", 'Naruto' said, an insane grin still plastered across his vulpine face, "**After all, if ****I am**** the 'demon brat', than where might the demon be?**"

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"Ack, what, where am I? I was running, and what? Did the man drop me in the sewers?", Naruto said, spitting out water. For some reason, we was nearly submerged in it. "Gah", he said, spitting out the disgusting water, and trying to look around. He was in a dark room, filled with roughly four feet of water, that seemed to be flowing in one direction, through a tunnel directly ahead of him.

After following the water's flow for a while, Naruto found himself in the largest room, with only several inches of water on the floor, and one whole side of the room barricaded off. He approached the barricade, and as he got closer, felt as if the air itself was getting thicker. He walked to the bars, and looked inside, at the darkness that greeted him.

_Something_ shifted on the other side of the bars, slightly scaring Naruto and causing him to step back a ways. "**Now that's correct procedure for most people when dealing with me.**", said an ominous Voice from the other side of the bars. "Wha-what's going on here, I was running from the old man, and then... I ended up in some sewer?"

"**Oh, don't worry about the old man, I'm keeping him quite **_**entertained**_**.**" , said The Voice, which had gone from slightly creepy, to "What are you doing, run!" scariness, said.

"Entertained?", said Naruto, slightly confused.

"**Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough, ku-ku-ku.**", replied The Voice.

"Ugh, that's the creepiest laugh I've ever heard.". Naruto said, shuddering slightly.

"**You're worried about how I laugh? I think you have bigger things to worry about. How about you look up, ****brat****.**"

Naruto searched the area above him, but did not see anything, until he made out a row of teeth, each probably about the size of himself. After that, the rest fell into place.

"Ack! What the...", Naruto trailed off, trying to make out what he was standing before in the dim light. He traced the face to a rust-orange torso, then found four legs, and, finally, nine tails.

"Wait, are you the Kyuubi, how... how did you get here! Where am I, and why are you here with me! What is going on!", Naruto shrieked, completely lost by what was happening around him.

"**Well, since I ****happened to have had**** no desire to fe****e****l what is essentially **_**myself**_** getting stabbed, I helped you get out of th****at little**_**situation **_**that you were in.**"

"What situation? What _happened?_", Naruto repeated, getting more angry and confused. At this point he couldn't move if he wanted to, he was too confused and shocked at what was happening around him.

"**Well, why don't you take a look for yourself****?**", the fox said, touching Naruto with the tip of one of it's tails.

"What..." Naruto fell to the ground, semi-unconscious while receiving the images the Kyuubi was sending him.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Meanwhile, in the 'real world':

'Naruto' walked through the streets of Konoha, people staring at him as he walked by. It must have had something to do with the fact that he was covered in blood, or maybe that he was dragging a body behind him.

'Naruto' walked into the Hokage tower, dragging a man easily three times his own weight behind him, both of them covered in blood. Naruto did not seem any worse for wear, with no bleeding injuries. The man he was dragging, on the other hand, was a different case. He had been, for lack of better word, _gutted_, and several of the important bits that were supposed to stay on the _inside_ of his body seemed to have been strewn all over the _outside_ of it.

People simply went out of their way to stay out of the blood-covered, unstable kid's path as he made his way up to the Hokage's office. He calmly knocked on the door, and after waiting a few seconds, walked into the office, to find the Hokage talking with another man across his desk, piles of paper everywhere, just like every other time he had been to the office. The guest saw Naruto first, as the Hokage was looking at someone outside, drawing his attention.

"What the hell is that thing!", the guest said, after looking at Naruto for a few seconds.

"What thing?", said the Hokage, looking around, and finally resting his gaze on Naruto.

"What happened to you?", 'Naruto' did not respond.

"You going to answer?", the Hokage said, before noticing the body Naruto dragged behind him.

"Oh. Kami help us.", he said, after a short pause.

"I think you summed that up quite nicely."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"Wait, what happened out there?", said a now shaken Naruto.

"**I told you, I provided some assistance since you were in trouble.**", replied the Kyuubi, smirking slightly.

"B-but what did you do?", said Naruto, stuttering slightly.

"**I think you will find that out for yourself soon. Now go, I'm getting annoyed at having to answer your questions, brat.**", the Kyuubi said, as the room gradually got dimmer...

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Naruto awoke, as all anime characters do after losing consciousness, with a groan. This cause the Hokage to look over to the chair Naruto was currently located in, and notice he had awoken.

"Okay Naruto, would you mind telling me what is going on? You came here dragging a body behind you, and since then haven't said a word to tell me what is going on.", the Hokage said, glaring at Naruto.

"I'm not sure, there - there was a man attacking me, and he hit me, and then the Kyuubi, and he did..." Naruto seemed to be going into shock once again over what had happened, and he still didn't know what it _was_ that had happened. "Wait... walked in, a body, what?", Naruto said, wondering what was going on, and becoming less and less coherent.

"You, walked in, dragging a body behind you. How do you not remember this?", said the Hokage, before realizing, "Wait, Kyuubi, when did you... What!"

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

After Sarutobi called in his ANBU guard, asking him to find out what had happened to Naruto, he turned back towards his desk. Sitting down, he turned to Naruto, saying "So... once the ANBU get back from finding out what happened, we'll find out once and for all what the hell is going on."

"But first, I'm going to have to ask you to try to explain what happened. Are you steady enough to try to describe what happened?", asked the Hokage, handing Naruto a towel for his face.

"Yeah, I think so. I think I know what happened, up to a point.", said Naruto, now appearing much more normal, at least lacking the bloodstains that were on his face. "I was walking home after getting some ramen at Ichiraku's, when I got the feeling someone was following me. I turned around, but since it was crowded, I couldn't tell who it was. I walked farther, and once I saw the man following me, started running through a side street, when the man caught up to me. He pushed me down, and pulled out a knife. He stabbed me with the knife, but I managed to bite his arm. When he pulled his arm out, he hit me on the head with the back of the knife, but everything was getting pretty fuzzy then, and I couldn't see anything, then he hit me again, and I must've lost consciousness then, because I don't remember anything else after that."

"Okay, but that doesn't quite explain how _he_ ends up dead, and _you_ end up just fine.", said the Hokage, impatiently waiting for the ANBU to return.

A knock at the door interrupted his musings, as a voice from the other side of the door said "Hokage-sama." "Come in", Sarutobi replied.

The door opened, and an ANBU in a dog mask entered, saying "Hokage-sama, we have followed the blood trail back, and investigated the scene of the accident, and found several strange things there. First, a large amount of blood, obviously, most of it probably from the dead man, but some, strangely black-tinted, and having large amounts of demonic chakra residue on it. We suspect that this came from Uzumaki-san. Second is the fact that the whole area was torn apart. There were rather deep gashes in the ground, which looked strangely burnt, and apparently, at some point someone was thrown into a wall, hard enough to do damage to the bricks and leave a roughly one or two centimetre impression of... something.

"Well, this is worrying. We still don't exactly know what happened though.", said the Hokage, turning to Naruto. "So, you still don't know what happened?"

"I just told you, no. I'm starting to have my suspicions though..."

"What!", said an irate Sarutobi.

"After I lost consciousness, I woke up in a sewer, and after walking around, seemed to find the Kyuubi. When I asked it what was going on, it said that it was 'keeping him entertained.' It must've done something to him, but I still don't know what happened.", Naruto replied.

**But **_**I**_** do!**

"What?", Naruto said, much to the Hokage and his guard's surprise.

"I didn't say anything Naruto.", said Sarutobi.

"Oh, I must've heard wrong.", Naruto said.

"**No, you heard me perfectly fine.**", said someone.

"Wait... That's The Voice from earlier.", said Naruto.

"What voice?", said the Hokage.

"Wait, how can I hear it out here?", Naruto said. By now the Hokage was more than slightly worried, having not taken long to figure out what "out here" meant. "That must be the Kyuubi!"

**Wow! You actually figured it out without outside help, I'm almost shocked! I wouldn't have guessed you had that much intellect.**

"Umm... Yeah, but how can I hear you out here, and you still haven't explained what happened.", said Naruto.

**Don't worry, all will be revealed in time. In the meantime, I'm going to ask you to relay what I say to the Hokage. If you need to reply, don't say anything out load, just think about trying to talk to me.**

_Okay. Can you hear me now?_

**Yeah, that'll be fine, just talk to them.**

"Jiji, the Kyuubi wants to talk to you.", said Naruto, who seemed to be accepting this as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Umm... Okay. I guess. How?", said Sarutobi.

"I just have to tell you what it said.", said Naruto, still extremely calm.

"Okay... So what does it have to say?", said the Hokage.

**Yeah, I killed the man they saw me drag in, no I'm not apologising for it, honestly, what are you going to do to me, anyway? He should have stayed out of my way like a halfway intelligent person would've, and he could've lived out a life of mediocrity like he should've. At least it was fun, I've been so bored sitting in one place for years. Second, if you want to see what happened, then I can show you. It's not that hard to guess though, and this is more for Naruto's benefit than anyone else's. I'm also going to give you an important message at the end of it, so just wait for that.**

Naruto relayed the Kyuubi's message to the Hokage, who cringed at the Kyuubi's idea of 'fun'. He thought about what it had said, before saying "I guess we might as well listen to what it has to say. It can't hurt, after all."

**Okay, the technique I'm going to use on you all is**** a form of ****Kitsune Illusion****, the ****technique****s**** which were**** the foundation****s**** for genjutsu****,****the M****emori Tensou (Memory Transfer.)****Since I'm stuck in ****you for the time being, I need them to be in contact with you for this to work, rather than just flooding the air with chakra. Just get them to hold on to some exposed part of your body.**

The instructions were once again relayed to the Hokage, who told the ANBU to pull him off Naruto if anything happened. He followed the Kyuubi's instructions, holding Naruto's arm, as the Kyuubi began the illusion.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"What's going on... What's wrong?", said the man, looking at the knife which he had by now realised wasn't touching Naruto.

"**What do you think?**", replied 'Naruto' in a heavily distorted voice.

"Uh.. I dunno?", replied the confused man.

"**Well, it doesn't much matter what you think now, does it? You won't get to tell anybody now, will you?**", replied 'Naruto.'

"What? What do you mean, won't get to tell anybody?", replied the man, recovering some of his earlier rage.

"**Well, I'm not quite up to what I should be in this brat's body, but I think it'll be just fine for taking care of you.**", replied 'Naruto'. "**I have been so bored sitting in that cage, thanks for finally giving me a break****.**"

The man, now very shakily, said "I'm not letting you do anything, demon." The man grabbed the knife again, and attempted to stab Naruto. I say attempted because before he was even able to get close, 'Naruto' grabbed his wrist. The man screamed, and dropped the knife. Not only did the kid have a strong grip, his skin was starting to burn where Naruto had grabbed him.

A red coating began to form over Naruto, starting to heal the many cuts and scrapes the man had inflicted on him. The man tried to pull his arm away, but 'Naruto' did not let go. The man looked at Naruto with fear evident in his eyes. 'Naruto' said "**Now, what are you doing, you got to have your fun, why won't you let me do the same?**" 'Naruto' twisted the arm he had in his grasp until a faint 'pop' could be heard from the man's shoulder. The man seriously started panicking now, and was starting to hyperventilate. "**Now calm down, wouldn't want you you to have a heart attack while I'm just getting started.**", said 'Naruto' with a smile Ichimaru Gin could've taken lessons from.

Naruto picked up the man's knife off the ground and prepared to cut the man open. "No, no, get away from me!", the man said, futilely struggling to back away from Naruto. 'Naruto' placed his hand on the man's chest, saying "**This might hurt, a bit, but don't worry, it'll be over soon.**" As red chakra started making it's way from Naruto's hand into the man's chest, the man started screaming. "**Now, let's end this pointless struggle, shall we?**", 'Naruto' said, pulling his hand away from the man. With that, the chakra that was forced into the man's chest quickly left it. This had the side effect of imploding the man's chest, spraying blood all over Naruto and the area.

"**Now, I take my leave.**", said 'Naruto' to the dead man. As he dragged the body out of the alley and towards the Hokage tower.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

**And, that's that! This is a slightly shortened version of what I'd originally wrote, where the man was drawn and quartered. *gagging sounds* I'm not sure I like this version more, but the other was quite graphic, and I decided to retract it. If you want the original for some reason, ****in all it's gory, uncensored glory, ****I ****think it's on my computer somewhere****, but don't count on it.**** (****N****ot sure why you'd want it anyways.)**

**Anyway, next chapter deals with the aftermath, and then a major timeskip.**

** Until then, bitshoptyler signing off.**


	2. Aftermath

**Okay, I'm back with another chapter of Baptized in Blood. This deals with the aftermath of "the man"'s attack on Naruto, 'Naruto''s attack on the the man, and the whole bloody mess.**

** Also, I have seen what the Kyuubi's name is, but nobody in this story knows it yet, so that's why it wasn't identified in the last chapter.**

**Also, this chapter is more than 1,000 words longer than the last, but how long do YOU, the reader think that chapter's aught to be? I'm thinking 3,000-5,000 words long.  
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**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but you probably already guessed that.**

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Naruto, after seeing what the Kyuubi had done to his assailant, had proceeded to vomit all over the nice chair he was in, though considering the amount of blood already covering it, he didn't think it mattered much right now.

"So Naruto, how are you feeling?", said Sarutobi.

"Pained.", replied Naruto. It was true, his whole body felt like it had been set on fire from the inside out.

'That's probably a side effect of the Kyuubi's chakra', thought Sarutobi. "Right now, I just want you to lay down, you look to be in pretty bad shape." after saying that, he asked one of the ANBU attending to fetch a medic. Once the ANBU had returned, he once again sent him out to tell the secretary to schedule a council meeting in fifteen minutes. Turning back to Naruto, he decided not to interrupt him, as he had fallen asleep, probably from sheer exhaustion and shock, during the one or two minutes he had spent getting a medic and having a meeting scheduled.

When the medic came in and performed a cursory inspection of Naruto, she decided that he wasn't in need of treatment, but was just exhausted, and said that he needed to get some sleep, which he seemed to be doing quite fine at on his own.

"Okay, I'll have someone take him home and let him rest then.", said the Hokage. He asked one of the ANBU to take Naruto back to his apartment and stay there, in case anyone tried anything. He then headed off to face (yell at) the council.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

All the council members were talking to one another about why the meeting had been called.

"What's going on?"

"I heard it had something to do with the Uzumaki kid."

"Really? Is he dead? Who killed him?"

"I don't know if he's even dead, now hold on, there's the Hokage."

Once Sarutobi burst in the room, all eyes turned to him. "I'm not sure if you all know what you were called here for, so I'll clarify things for you. Uzumaki Naruto was attacked by a civilian near his apartment earlier today." He paused, seeing some of satisfied grins forming on most of the civilian side's faces, and even some of the ninja's. "Luckily, he is not dead." Some of the grins faltered at hearing that. "But what I'm more interested in is why some of you were happy at hearing that he was attacked." Even more of the grins were wiped off of faces at hearing the Hokage's tone get steadily darker towards the end.

"Now, pray tell, why would you be satisfied at hearing that Uzumaki was attacked, or were you hoping he was dead, maybe? Can any of you tell me what would happen if Naruto were to be killed? How would you like the Kyuubi to attack again?" Most of the members paled at hearing that. "Are you so anxious, even, to even have Naruto using the 'demonic powers' you insist he has to get revenge, because he was attacked?" Most of the civilians were now pale, and some were shaking at the amount of Killing Intent being released by the Hokage. The calm voice, mixed with a substantial amount of K.I., was making even most of the ninja side edgy.

"That is why you have been called here. While the attacker was not successful in killing Naruto, the opposite is true. Once the man had stabbed Naruto, the Kyuubi took over, and killed the man.", said Sarutobi, slightly grimacing at the end.

"Well, do you have the de- I mean, Uzumaki - in custody?", asked one civilian.

"No. I had an ANBU take him back to his apartment and keep an eye on him."

"What are we going to do about this?", asked another.

"Nothing."

"You can't be serious! Some one was killed by the dem- Uzumaki, and we're not going to do anything about it?"

"Oh, I'm going to do something. You're going to stay out of it though. Naruto is going to be enrolled in the ninja academy, and I'm going to prevent this from happening again. The civilians, however, are not part of this.", said the Hokage.

"You don't expect to be able to get away with this do you? You can't do anything without us.", said a councilman who thought himself fairly astute.

"I think you've got that out of order. You..." he said, pointing to the council, "can't do anything without me. Let me remind you that this is a dictatorship, not an aristocracy. You could all be fired and you're property seized for the 'good of the village' if I deemed it necessary. But let's not dwell on problems like these, the important thing is that Naruto is still okay, and a Giant Fox of DOOM™ has not attacked our village. Now, I'm going to leave, and check up on Naruto, and I don't want any of you acting up while I'm gone." With that, the Hokage turned and left, turning to one of the ANBU stationed near the door. "Don't let any of them out of this room until I return. I can't have them spreading rumours about Naruto before I can talk to the village."

"Hai, Hokage-sama.", responded the ANBU.

The Hokage turned to another ANBU. "I want you to make sure the majority of the village knows that Naruto was attacked, and that an ANBU on guard killed the man responsible for the attack. We don't need people panicking. I don't care how you do it, just make sure by tomorrow morning the village knows this. I also want you to send a message to Jiraiya, and tell him to get back here, as soon as possible. "

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

(The Next Morning)

Naruto woke up groggily, rubbed his eyes, and made his way to the kitchen of his apartment, carrying his fox plushie. Once he got to the hall, he noticed someone else was already in there. "Jiji, what are you doing here?" asked Naruto.

"Do you remember what happened yesterday?", asked Sarutobi.

"Umm... OH!" Naruto recalled what happened, and how he ended up passed out in a chair in the Hokage's office. "But how did I get here?"

"I had an ANBU take you back. But what I came here to ask you is 'how do _you_ feel?'", asked the Hokage.

"I don't know, I feel fine, but I'm scared.", said Naruto.

"Don't worry, the man that attacked you is dead, nobody's going to attack you again.", said the Hokage, holding Naruto.

"I'm not worried about a dead man, I'm talking about the fox from yesterday.", said Naruto, now looking strangely at the plushie he held.

"Okay, I probably should tell you about that, but I'm probably not the best person to explain it, so why don't you wait a few days for a friend of mine to show up, and he can tell you about it.", said the Hokage.

"**I can tell you ****right now, if you so desire****.**", said The Voice, which Naruto had now associated with the Kyuubi.

"What? How?" said Naruto.

"Well, he knows more than me about fuuinjutsu, so he's probably..."

"No, not that! I'm talking about that voice.", said an exasperated Naruto.

"And Kyuubi makes an appearance.", said the Hokage.

"What? How can I hear the Kyuubi?", said Naruto.

"Uggh, I guess I should give you some explanation about what happened there. Do you know about the Kyuubi attack eight years ago?"

"Yeah, some, that's what the big festival on my birthday is for, isn't it?", said Naruto.

"Yeah, something like that, anyway, when it attacked, it was defeated mostly by the Yondaime Hokage. The fourth couldn't really kill it, so he sealed it inside you.", said Sarutobi. "So, that's how it ended up in you."

''**It' has a name you know.**'

_'Then what is it?'_

"**You don't need to know that yet, brat.**"

"Okay, but how did he 'seal' it in me?", asked Naruto.

"Fuuinjutsu. I can get you a book on it or something if you want. I don't know that much about it, actually.", admitted the Hokage.

"Uck! A book, and I'm not even in school, what are you trying to do to me?", asked a disgusted Naruto.

"Well, you could've learned to do this...", said the Hokage, pulling out a piece of paper, and unsealing a kunai from it. "But I guess you're going to let bibliophobia stop you from..."

"No! I'll read it, that was cool!", said an excited Naruto.

"Okay, okay. I'll pick up the scroll from the library when I head home. Speaking of which, there have been several people come by this out of the way apartment, and I think someone might be planning something against you, so I was wondering if you'd like to stay at my house for a while.", Sarutobi said.

"Yay!", Naruto responded.

"Okay, you can come now if you want, I need to get back to work soon." With that, the Hokage led Naruto, carrying some clothes and his plushie, out of the apartment.

Once at the estate, Sarutobi explained "I've got plenty of extra room, the Sarutobis were never a large clan, but now, there just aren't many left, so I can give you some old room." When they walked into the room, noticing the large amount of dust on most surfaces, he retracted his earlier statement. "Okay, maybe not an _old_ room." Making their way to a guest room, which was not as unkempt. "Okay, you can stay here if you want."

"Yeah, that's fine, do you have any ramen?" Hiruzen face-palmed at Naruto's question, but replied "Yeah, I think I've got some in the kitchen." 'Man, that kid's easy to please, isn't he.', he thought.

"Yay! This is the best house ever!" said Naruto, running off before returning shortly. "Umm... Where's the kitchen again?"

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"So, what's up, I got your message, and came as quickly as I could.", said Jiraiya, sitting down in one of the chairs. "Eww... what's up with this chair?", he asked, moving to another chair.

"That chair, which I meant to get cleaned or thrown out, is part of the reason you're here. There's blood all over that chair, as you probably noticed. Someone attacked Naruto a few days ago. Naruto was fine by the time that he got here, but the man who attacked him was dead."

"Oh. This is... worrying.", said Jiraiya. "How was the man killed?

"Once he attacked Naruto, Naruto was hit on the head, and once he was unconscious, the Kyuubi took over, and used some form of chakra manipulation to implode the man's chest. Then he... it... something... dragged the body back to the Hokage tower, and gave Naruto back possession of his body.", explained the Hokage.

"How do you know how it did that?", asked Jiraiya.

"It used some genjutsu to show us the memory it had of the event.", said Hiruzen.

"That must have been one of the kitsune techniques. What did he call it?", asked Jiraiya, in note-taking mode.

"**M****emori Tensou (Memory Transfer****)**, I think he said.", replied the Hokage.

"It's fairly alarming that it has enough control over Naruto to do that while completely sealed.", said Jiraiya.

"Yes, it is. It's control did not seem to be perfect though, because it still had to touch us to use the technique.", said Sarutobi. "I think, though, that we've spent enough time talking about how I know this. What matters is that I do, and what we're going to do about it."

"Yes, quite so. I'm not sure what to do. I could tighten down the seal, but that would adversely affect Naruto, as the seal is pretty much meant to be loosened as time goes on, the seal is letting in almost the minimum amount of the Kyuubi's chakra possible, at least until Naruto starts channelling large amounts of chakra. At least, that _was _the plan. I'm not sure what happened to trigger this, but I'm guessing that Naruto, consciously or not, tried to access the demon's chakra, once he was in a life-or-death situation.", said Jiraiya.

"Well, I think that we should just let things play out as they are, and see how this works out. If it doesn't, then you have my permission to tighten the seal as much as you think is necessary. Why don't we get Naruto's opinion on this, though." With that, he called for one of the assistants outside to bring Naruto in, who was waiting in the lobby via the Hokage's orders. "So, Naruto, we've talked some, and we want your opinion of what we should do. I've explained what happened to Jiraiya, he's the man I told you about who could explain about the Kyuubi, and I want to know what you think should be done now."

"Wait! you're the guy that wrote the book he gave me, aren't you.", asked Naruto.

"Isn't the kid a little too young to be reading my books, sensei?", said Jiraiya, wondering what Sarutobi was thinking.

"No! It's not... _those_ books, it's that scroll you wrote for the library on Fuuinjutsu. I gave it to Naruto since he asked what it was, and showed in interest after I showed him a sealing tag.", explained the Hokage.

"Oh. So anyways, Naruto, Sarutobi here explained what happened, and that the man attacked you, and you only defended yourself, so you don't have to feel bad about what happened.", said Jiraiya.

"I... I don't want that to happen again, I don't want something bad like that to happen to people around me...", said Naruto, wavering slightly.

"Don't worry, we won't let that happen again. Me and Sarutobi will be here, so if you need anything, just ask us.", said Jiraiya.

"But how are you going to help? I'm not worried about the man attacking, I'm worried about the Kyuubi hurting someone else.", asked Naruto, slightly sniffling.

"Don't worry, it won't be able to do anything if you aren't in danger. I think you have to be unconscious for it to do anything, so just don't get knocked out and you'll be fine, right?", said Jiraiya, turning his statement into a question for the Hokage near the end.

"Yeah, that seems to be the case as far as we could tell, so we're just going to let things stay the way they are for now, and I'll have Jiraiya keep an eye on you for a while, to see how things are going, if that's okay." he replied, directing the question towards Jiraiya.

"Yeah, I'll be fine keeping an eye on the brat for a while,", said Jiraiya. "Hey! the 'brat' is right here!", said Naruto. "_Anyway_," continued Jiraiya, "keeping an eye on him shouldn't be too hard, right?"

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

'I was wrong about it being easy.', thought Jiraiya, as he chased an orange-clad kid through the streets of Konoha. 'Man, I saw the whole thing and I'm _still_ not sure how he pulled that one off', thought Jiraiya proudly. 'He managed to sneak into ANBU HQ, past all the guards, shinobi, and workers, all while wearing an orange jumpsuit, just to bleach the uniforms white. I might have Konoha's next espionage expert on my hands here.' A smirking Jiraiya grabbed Naruto's jacket again, only for the kid to slither out of his grip again. 'If I can even get him on my hands.', he thought, frowning. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he decided to try a different approach, and was just about to test his plan when a voice called out "Naruto, look, free ramen!".

Naruto stopped dead in his tracks, searching the area for the ramen. "Gotcha!", yelled Iruka, grabbing Naruto's jacket.

"H-how did you do it?", asked a stunned Jiraiya.

"Oh, he's a sucker for ramen. And you are?", asked Iruka.

Jiraiya immediately struck a pose. "The amazing super-pervert! The world-famous writer! Flooded with anger, I cry tears of blood! The hermit of the legendary sannin! The toad demon of the mysterious Myoboku Mountain! The great Jirrrrrraiyaaaaaah!"

"Oh, come on, ero-sannin, you're embarrassing to be around.", said Naruto.

"Ero-sannin?", asked Iruka.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO USE THAT NAME IN PUBLIC!", yelled Jiraiya.

"_Anyways_, what are you doing here, and with Naruto?", asked Iruka.

"He's just watching me for a while to make sure I don't do anything, after, you know... when that guy attacked me.", said Naruto.

"Okay, it's about lunch time anyway, do you want to go to Ichiraku's?", asked Iruka.

"Of course, where else would I want to go.", said an excited Naruto.

"Okay, okay. We can go to the ramen place.", said Iruka.

After letting Naruto run ahead of them, Jiraiya turned to Iruka, saying "So, how do you know Naruto, is he in your class?"

"No. not yet, I'm one of the ninja teachers, and so far he's only standard school age, so he's not in that yet, once he is, though, I hope he will join my class. He's not the brightest, but he works hard, and he's a good kid, he's just had a rough time.", said Iruka.

"Yeah... have you heard about the man that attacked him?", asked Jiraiya.

"Yeah, sounds like a mess. I don't think it was his fault, though. The man attacked him, and would've killed him if not for... Also, who knows what would've happened if he was killed. I don't want the risk of the Kyuubi attacking again, I've already lost too many people to it.", explained Iruka. "I don't really think he deserves what people have done to him. All he ever talks about is being Hokage, and getting people's respect, and things like that."

"Yeah, he's got a pretty bad lot in life, he doesn't deserve it. Hold on, here's Ichiraku's, let's not discuss such depressing topics.", said Jiraiya.

"Yeah, I'll get the Tonkotsu, and miso, and, uh... what's your special of the day?", finished Naruto.

"Suicide Ramen. It's sort of a chicken ramen, but it's pretty hot, you sure you can handle it?", asked Teuchi.

"Of course I can old man, I'll eat any type of ramen.", boasted Naruto.

"Any type?", said Teuchi, plotting something.

"Yeah, I _am_ your best customer, remember?", said Naruto.

"Okay, okay Naruto, I've got your ramen.", said Ayame.

"Itadakimasu.", said Naruto, managing to fit the word into what sounded like one syllable, before stuffing his face into the bowl.

"Yep, got Kushina's eating habit's", said Jiraiya.

"Whud?", said Naruto, his mouth so full of noodles it was almost surprising they weren't flowing from his ears at this point.

"Nothing, go back to your dish, you poor, starving child.", said Jiraiya.

"Whuddever, erruw sen-in", said Naruto. His mouth still had more noodles than it should have been able to hold inside it, and somehow he was adding even _more _food to it.

Once Jiraiya and Iruka had finished their bowls, and Naruto had finished his third, Teuchi came out of the back, holding a bowl. "Okay, you asked for it! The One, the only, Suuuuicied Raaamennnn!", Teuchi announced. "Here are just some of the lovely reviews we've had from our satisfied customers:

"It's put hair on my eyeballs!"

"Breathe! BREATHE!"

"That was, unequivocally, the spiciest ramen I've ever had."

"YOSH! It's the best ramen I've ever tasted!"

"Get that spandex stuff out of my face!"

"No, Lee's spandex is a tremendous display of his Youth!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SEN-"

"AGGH, MY EYES!"

(End Flash- I mean 'reviews')

Everybody at the table sweat-dropped at the 'reviews' from 'satisfied customers.' After they had recovered, Teuchi spoke. "See, it'll be great."

"I think I'll pass...", said Jiraiya and Iruka at the same time.

"Are you kidding! This stuff looks great! I think I'll try some.", Naruto said.

"Okay, your funeral.", Ayame said, passing the bowl to Naruto.

Once the bowl got within range of Naruto's nose, his eyes started watering. Once Naruto seemingly _inhaled _the first noodles, his face turned red, and he promptly blew out a fire ball which torched the roof of the poor Ichiraku's restaurant.

"Look what you did to my stand!", Teuchi said, crying anime tears.

"Oh, don't worry, no damage lasts longer than an episode or two.", Naruto responded.

'**Kit, you're breaking the fourth wall.**', the Kyuubi said.

'No, I only broke the roof, see.', Naruto said.

'**No, I mean... never mind, I'll explain some other time.**', the Kyuubi responded.

'Okay', Naruto responded.

"This stuff is... pretty spicy.", Naruto said. He would never admit it, but he actually didn't want to finish a bowl of ramen for the first time in his life. But he couldn't insult ramen like that, and besides, Iruka and the old man were watching him. He quickly gulped down the broth, and asked for a drink, eyes watering, and nose running slightly.

"Wow. I'm surprised he made it, most people quit after just smelling the stuff.", said Teuchi.

"Yeah, that's one hard-headed kid. He's not going to give up after saying he'd eat it though.", said Jiraiya.

"I never go back on my word, that's my nindo!", said Naruto, in between gulps of water.

"That water isn't going to help you, kid,", said Teuchi. "you need something else. Try-"

"No, I'm fine, I'm not drinking that stuff.", said Naruto, looking with suspicion on the red drink that Teuchi was offering him. "My trust in your dishes has decreased somewhat recently, so I'll just stick with water."

"Okay, just trying to help...", said a sulking Teuchi.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"I think he'll be fine.", said Jiraiya. "I didn't see anything wrong with him in the time that I spent with him, though his apartment sucks, it looks like somebody vandalised it, the window was busted out, and some stuff inside was spray-painted. I'd check up on that place, I haven't seen it in the past few days. Other than that, everything seems fine, no weird speaking in tongues or attacking random people, so it could be worse."

"Okay, I'll check up on the apartment, anything else?", asked Hiruzen.

"Yeah, when you enroll Naruto into the academy, Iruka said he wanted him in his class.", Jiraiya said. "Other than that, I don't see anything that needs discussing. Oh, wait. You should try Ichiraku's Suicide Ramen™, it's actually really good."

"Okay, I'll try it next time I go by there."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Omake: _The Beginner's Guide to Fuuinjutsu_

Fuuinjutsu, some say, is a lost art. I disagree, but it is true that it has fallen out of practice since the fall of the Uzumaki's and the Whirlpool Village they belonged to.

Fuuinjutsu, the art of sealing, can be defined, simply, as "The formation of a seal, created with ink, and written on a surface, that accomplishes something." This is true. Whether you create a piece of paper that simply explodes when lit (not useful, unless you have a timer) or a seal that **separates a SOUL from a person's body,** this definition usually works. But not always. The correct definition of Fuuinjutsu is "The creation of an entity, using chakra, usually inscribed onto another surface or entity, that, through the use of the chakra used to inscribe it, and occasionally the chakra of the entities near it, accomplishes a purpose." You can see, simply through the varying definitions of Fuuinjutsu, that sealing is not a simple art, to be casually learned through a series of lectures, or even through books.

You read that right. I'm saying, if you want to learn fuuinjutsu, you aren't going to learn it from here. Go out, find a seal master, or even someone that just churns out explosive tags on the weekends for a couple ryo on the side, just find an actual person that knows at least something about fuuinjutsu. There is no way you are going to be able to correct your own mistakes at this, and it helps a lot having someone there to help you, and tell you how to go about using the ideas you'll have, and you _will_ have ideas, not all of them safe, and most of them probably not very ethical.

Happy Sealing

-Jiraiya

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

**And that's another chapter gone. The chapter after this has a major timeskip, actually 3 years, to the point Naruto graduates.**** If you have any problems, find errors, or just want to whine at me, please review. You can even do it to **_**compliment**__** me**_**, if you so desire. (Yeah right!)**

** If you have any ideas about what to do with this story, other than pairings (**_**strictly**__** NaruHina**_**) feel free to review or PM. I could always use them, and even if I can't, they make great plot bunnies.**

**For those of you that were wondering (and those of you that weren't) suicide ramen is, in fact, a real dish. Maybe not one that many people have heard of. Okay, maybe I'm the one that came up with it, but I think it's pretty good. Other people who have tried it, not so much. If you want the recipe, it is on my profile page.**

**Also, I'm looking for work beta'ing stories, just check out my profile page. I think my story should speak for itself, as far as such things as spelling and grammar go.  
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** Until next time, bitshoptyler signing off.**


	3. The Demon Returns

**I'm back! ****With the introduction over we r****ejoin Naruto and the rest of the ****characters ****after 3 years in the ninja academy, so this chapter mainly deals with explaining what happened over the break.**

** Also, I got the first review of the story, but all it said was "Very witty." , if whoever left that would like to claim ownership of their review and elaborate on that, it would be nice.**

** *EDIT* - This chapter has been **_**completely**_** rewritten. I hate the old chapter, and I decided to do something about it. If any of you were disappointed in the last version of this chapter, **_**please review**_**. I want to know **_**why**_** it sucked, because it did...****.**** Badly. **

** Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, that's why it's called *****fan*fiction.**

** Key to speaking:**

"Someone's speaking"

'**Demon speaking, inside mind**'

"**Demon speaking, outside mind**"

_'I'm thinking'_ (First person)

'Speaking, inside mind'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

'_No! Someone saw me!_', Naruto thought, ducking behind a building. '_I can't let anybody catch me, I've got to get to the main building._' Naruto was currently sneaking through the Hyuuga compound, towards the main building, where the armory, library, and dojo were based. Less known, however, was that it was also where basic 'chores', such as laundry and meal preparation were done. This was the reason Naruto Uzumaki was currently making his way towards the building, with several gallons of dye stored in various seals in the bag he was carrying.

After checking that nobody had, in fact, saw him, he made his way to the back entrance of the building. Picking the lock, he entered the building. '_Let's see, where's the laundry._', he thought, making his way through the currently unoccupied halls. Once finding the laundry, he removed one scroll from the bag he was carrying, unsealing it to reveal several pint jars of orange dye. '_Yes! Everything is organized perfectly, I can be in and out of here in a few minutes._', he thought, removing the cap from one container. '_Their organization will be their downfall._', he thought, dumping the dye onto a pile of nice, white clothes.

After covering all the outfits he could find in the room with dye, he resealed the empty containers of dye, and made his way back into the hall. Entering the industrial-sized kitchen, he looked for a refrigerator. '_There it is!_', he thought, opening the door to reveal foodstuffs of every kind. After finding several containers of milk, he proceeded to add the dye to them, the same for any other liquids, and all the already prepared foods. '_Let's see what they think tomorrow. That'll teach them to yell at Hinata for being with me._'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

(The Next Day)

"What do you mean 'orange'?", asked Hiashi.

"Exactly what I said.", said a servant. "When someone went to prepare breakfast, almost all the food in the refrigerators had been dyed orange, the same with the dry ingredients, which I'm afraid we can no longer use."

'_Damn it, who- It's that Naruto kid again, isn't it._', he thought, allowing a slight grimace to cross his features. "Anything _else_ I should know about."

"Yes, the clothes have been dyed also, so for now we'll need to wash the ones we have left more often, but it shouldn't take long for new ones to be made.", he responded.

"Very well then.", Hiashi responded. "Just make sure that I'm not wearing orange, or I'll never hear the end of it."

"Hai, Hiashi-sama", the servant responded.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Naruto awoke, grinning from the memory of what happened last night. In addition to that, today was the day that he graduated. '_Yes! I'm going to be a ninja today!_', he mentally shouted, before making his way to the kitchen to have breakfast. Noticing he was running low on milk, he reminded himself, _again_, to get milk later. After finishing breakfast, he walked out the door for his last day as an academy student.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

(At the Academy)

"So, did you see the clothes today, Hinata-chan?", Naruto asked, sitting down next to Hinata.

"Y-you did that, Naruto-kun?", said Hinata timidly.

"Of course! Who else would be able to pull off something like that?", Naruto said, proudly.

"I don't know, but don't you think it's a little... mean.", Hinata said. "I mean, a lot of the clothes have been ruined now, and we need to get new ones."

"They deserved it for yelling at you like that, Hinata-chan.", Naruto reassured her. "Besides, I saved you a couple outfits, so you're not in such bad shape."

"Okay Naruto.", Hinata said, giving up the argument.

"Okay class, now it's time for the tests to see if you are capable of being genin.", Iruka said, entering the classroom.

"Yes! This'll be easy!", Naruto yelled.

"Whatever you say, Naruto.", Hinata said.

"Settle down, Naruto!", Iruka yelled at the loud blond.

Naruto 'Hmmf'd at Iruka, before taking his seat as Iruka passed out papers.

"Now here is the written exam. Don't worry, I'm sure you're all capable of passing it easily.", Iruka said, handing out the last of the papers. "You have 30 minutes."

The test went fairly smoothly, until the end, where Naruto yelled to Iruka, "Hey Iruka-sensei, I thought you wouldn't put this on here, it's wrong."

"What are you talking about, Naruto?", Iruka asked.

"The Yondaime didn't kill the Kyuubi, or else I wouldn't have to deal with the annoying fuzzball every day. In fact, he still hasn't payed this month's rent. Ow!", Naruto said, feeling like he had been whacked in the head. '_Stupid fuzzball. Ow!_', he thought. His statements caused some confusion among his classmates, who didn't know what Naruto was going on about, but figured it to be a joke of his. '_What is he talking about? The Yondaime killed the Kyuubi years ago._', were the thoughts of most.

"Naruto, you shouldn't question what the teachers tell you.", Mizuki said, speaking up. He was backed up by a glare from Iruka that promised pain in his future if he continued the present conversation. Inwardly, however, Mizuki was thinking something completely different. '_How does he know about the Kyuubi? Nobody's told him, have they. No, he showed way too much familiarity with that for it to have just been told to him. Whatever, it doesn't interfere with my plans, so I'm not worried about it._'

Finally after the tests had been collected, they moved on to the jutsu tests. '_Damn, why did it have to be the __**Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Technique)**__, that's my worst one._', he thought, panicking at the thought of failing the exam. He decided to try his best, though, and walked to the front of the classroom.

"Okay, Naruto your turn.", said Iruka, tapping his clipboard.

"Okay, Iruka-sensei.", Naruto said, focusing his chakra. He decided that there must be something wrong with how much chakra he was using. He was right about that, but instead of trying to use as little as possible, he thought he wasn't using enough. Wrong choice.

'_Wow, he's really putting a lot of chakra into this one, isn't he._', thought Iruka. He could almost _taste_ the chakra in the air, it was so palpable. '_Something is bound to go wrong here, but I'm not sure what. Oh no._', he though, starting to feel the presence of demonic chakra in the air. '_This isn't good._' Just as he thought that, he realized what was going to happen. Realizing that it was too late to get Naruto to dispel the chakra as it had nowhere to go, he turned towards the rows of desks and formed a barrier between the students and Naruto.

In the next second, Naruto managed to force out all the chakra he had accumulated into making a Bunshin. The inherently unstable chakra took the form of Naruto for a split second before contacting the air. It violently exploded, blowing Naruto, Mizuki, and the desk away, as well as nearly removing the door from it's frame, and blowing out a window. As he picked himself up, he saw what remained of the classroom. not only had most of the furniture that was near Naruto been blown back, but the desk he was standing near had been completely obliterated. It was now in at least five pieces, and the floor around where he stood was charred. Noticing Iruka, who had stopped the explosion of chakra from harming the students, he turned his face towards the ground.

"I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei, it wasn't supposed to do that.", he admitted, before bursting into his energetic persona once more. "But it was really neat, right!"

"Naruto, YOU FAIL!", Iruka yelled, using his Big Head™ Jutsu. "You not only failed to make a clone for more than half a second, you nearly blew up the building with the shockwave from your clone's explosion."

"He did make a clone, though. Even of it detonated. Violently.", Mizuki said.

"He still fails.", yelled Iruka, expressing his disappointment in the blond.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"So, Naruto. You failed, huh?", Mizuki asked Naruto, now on the court outside, as if he didn't know the answer for himself.

"Guess.", Naruto said grumpily.

"Yeah. But there is a way for you to pass anyway.", Mizuki said, brightening up Naruto considerably.

"Yeah? What is it?", Naruto asked.

"Well..."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Naruto was now searching through a room full of scrolls and various other things at Konoha's library. "Let's see... there's Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, Genjutsu, Kenjutsu, Summoning, Kinjutsu. There!", he said, rifling through the Kinjutsu section until finding the Scroll of Sealing.

'**Wait, kit. Look in the summoning section. See if they have the Kitsune scroll.**', said the Kyuubi in Naruto's mind.

'Okay, I'll look.', replied Naruto, again rifling through the section until finding a scroll. 'I see it, now what do I do?'

'**You get out of here before someone spots you.**', Kyuubi responded. '**Drop that scroll off at your apartment before you meet Mizuki. You'll need it later.**'

'What for?', Naruto asked, curious as to why he would need it. 'Hello...', he asked again. '_Oh, so _now_ he doesn't respond._'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"Okay, so what is this scroll?", Naruto mumbled to himself, rolling the scroll out on the forest floor. "**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu? (Shadow Clone Technique?)**", he said, seeing that the first technique was one he was worst at. '_I'll have time to look later, now I need to copy this stuff down so I can give the scroll to Mizuki._', he thought, pulling out out of his blank fuuinjutsu scrolls and copying down what was written.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"Iruka-sensei, wake up!", said Mizuki, pounding on Iruka's door.

"I was up already, what do you want?", said Iruka.

"We've got to get to the Hokage. Naruto has stolen the forbidden scroll of sealing as a prank.", said Mizuki.

"What! Do you know what he could do with that thing? Is he trying to get revenge, or what?", asked Iruka.

"I don't know, but either way, this is bad!", said Mizuki, before disappearing in a Shunshin.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"It's been several hours since someone reported the scroll missing, we must find it.", said the Hokage to an amassed crowd of shinobi. "Those scrolls are dangerous Kinjutsu forbidden by the previous Hokage, we've got to get them back."

"Hai, Hokage-sama.", the collected shinobi responded, running off to find where Naruto had gone.

'I should check the woods for Naruto.', thought Iruka, heading off to do just that.

After searching a while, Iruka did, indeed, find Naruto, leaning against a tree, copying diligently from a scroll he was reading from. "What are you doing here, Naruto?", Iruka asked.

"Mizuki-sensei told me that if I stole this scroll I would pass, so will I pass now?", Naruto said excitedly.

"What? Why would he tell you that?", said Iruka. "Move!", he yelled, shoving Naruto out of the way, just as several kunai embedded themselves in his body.

"Naruto, give me the scroll.", Mizuki demanded.

"Don't give him the scroll, even if you die!", yelled Iruka in response.

"Wha- What's going on?", Naruto asked, confused.

"Naruto, Mizuki tricked you into getting the scroll from him. That's a dangerous scroll, filled with Kinjutsu. Mizuki used you to get his hands on it.", said Iruka, glaring at Mizuki from where he lay.

"Naruto, I think there's no point to you having the scroll. I'll tell you the truth, before you die.", Mizuki said. "12 years ago, you know about how the Kyuubi was sealed."

"Umm... yeah.", was Naruto's response. "What does this have to do with anything?", he asked.

"Since then, a rule was created, about you. But this rule was never supposed to be told to you.", he said, chuckling mischievously. "The rule... is that nobody can tell you... that you are the demon fox."

"Umm... didn't we already go over this? I knew that.", said Naruto, seeming rather bored.

"How'd you know that?", said Mizuki. "Nobody should've told you that you were the fox. Don't you know what this village has done to you, Naruto? The fox was sealed in you by the Hokage that you so admire, and everybody has lied to you. Didn't you find it weird that everybody hates you, that nobody even treated you like a human being, and would be perfectly happy to see you dead. In fact, some people even acted on that. Too bad those ANBU killed him, instead of letting him finish you off." Mizuki prepared a fuuma shuriken, spinning it while circling it around his body. "Iruka is the same! He actually hates you for killing his parents, Naruto! Nobody will ever accept you! The scroll you are holding was the one used to seal you!", he yelled, throwing the fuuma shuriken at Naruto.

"Wha-? Why, Iruka-sensei?", Naruto asked, seeing his favorite teacher above him, haven taken a hit from Mizuki's fuuma shuriken to save him.

"After my parents died (gasp)... nobody would compliment me, or acknowledge me, and to get attention, so people would acknowledge me, I acted like an idiot. I wasn't able to be the best, so instead of being an average person, I settled for being the clown, and acting like an idiot all the time.", he said, gasping for air through the weapons embedded in his chest. "It was so painful... You must be in a lot of pain also, Naruto. I'm sorry, if I had done a better job, you wouldn't be like this."

"Naruto!", Iruka yelled, seeing Naruto run off, still carrying the scroll.

"Hehe, you know, he's going to use that scroll to get revenge, don't you? He isn't the type to have a change of heart easily. You saw his eyes earlier, they are the eyes of a demon.", Mizuki said, smirking. "Well. it doesn't matter much anyways, I'll just kill both of you, and get the scroll for myself, _and_ be considered a hero by the village.", Mizuki said, drawing a kunai to finish Iruka off.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"We should have killed that demon when we had the chance, now we have to get him before he releases the Kyuubi's power.", yelled one of the gathered ninja. "Yes, he is very dangerous, you need to kill him on sight!", yelled another.

'_I finally find him, and this is what I get. Mizuki has told him, __but he already knows, so it shouldn't be too bad. However, __now we have a huge problem on our hands. __He has the scroll of sealing with him. __The odds of him breaking the seal are millions to one, but there is still a chance. We must get to him before then._', the Hokage thought resolutely.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"Naruto, hurry. Pass me the scroll before Mizuki catches up!", yelled Iruka to Naruto as they ran through the forest. Just then, Naruto switched direction, kicking Iruka to the ground. "Why, Naruto?", Iruka said, getting up from he ground. "How did you know I wasn't Iruka?"

"Simple, really. I'm Iruka.", 'Naruto' said, dispelling the henge around him.

"So... you would really transform into what killed your parents, just so you could protect the demon brat.", Iruka asked.

"I won't hand over the scroll to an idiot like you, Mizuki.", Iruka said, glaring at Mizuki.

"You're the idiot Iruka, Naruto and I are the same.", said Mizuki. "If you use what's in that scroll, you could do whatever you wanted. There's no way the demon wouldn't try to use that power, unlike what you're assuming."

"Yeah, it would.", agreed Iruka.

'_Damn it, I knew it... I see... even Iruka-sensei, deep down, doesn't acknowledge me._', thought Naruto.

"Yeah, the demon fox would do it, however, Naruto isn't the demon. I've acknowledged him... as one of my greatest students." Iruka said, grinning despite the pain he was in. "No matter what anyone else thinks. He isn't the smartest, and he isn't even the hardest working, but he already knows what it's like to feel true pain in your heart. He isn't the demon fox anymore, he's a member of Konohagakure... He's Uzumaki Naruto."

"Okay, never mind. I said I would take care of you later, but after that speech... I think I should kill you now!", he yelled, pulling out another fuuma shuriken, before Naruto appeared, kicking him away from Iruka.

"Don't touch Iruka-sensei, or I'll kill you.", Naruto said in a dangerously flat tone, reminiscent of a certain red-haired boy from Suna.

"Shut up punk, I'll kill you in one shot!", Mizuki yelled.

"First, I have something to tell you...", Naruto said, face towards the ground. "You got to share your secrets, now listen to mine. You mentioned earlier the man that attacked me, before I entered the academy. You also mentioned that the ANBU killed him before he could 'finish the job', is that right? Would you like to know something about that?", Naruto asked, still looking towards the ground.

"What? Why should I care what a brat like you has to say?", Mizuki taunted.

"Because I think it's very important to your health, not that it matters much anyway. I know what happened when that man attacked me. The ANBU didn't kill him.", Naruto said, looking up at Mizuki to reveal elongated canines and slitted, red eyes. "_I_ did.", he yelled, running towards Mizuki. "**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Shadow Clone Technique!)**", he yelled, running towards Mizuki, along with four clones. The clones each latched onto Mizuki, limiting his mobility. "Oh, and I learned the technique from the scroll.", he said, before slamming his hand through Mizuki's chest.

Iruka was nearly cowering in fear at the base of the tree. '_This isn't like then..._', he thought to himself, remembering the feeling of the nine-tail's chakra from when it attacked Konoha. '_It's just Naruto, there's nothing to worry about._', he thought, drawing himself up. "Hey, Naruto, come here, I have something for you.", Iruka said, making Naruto close his eyes.

"What is it? Can I open my eyes now sensei?", asked Naruto, excited to see what Iruka had for him.

"Yeah, go ahead and open them.", Iruka said, pulling his hands back.

Naruto opened his eyes, revealing... Iruka. "What did you do?", asked Naruto.

"Congratulations on graduating, Naruto.", Iruka said. After looking at Iruka for a few seconds, Naruto realized he was not wearing a headband.

"Yes!", he yelled, pulling his new headband off of his forehead. he stared at it for a few seconds, before reaching Iruka and hugging him.

"Ow. Naruto, hold the hugging for after I get the sharp things out of my back.", he exclaimed, before falling over. "Um... I don't think that I can walk back to Konoha. You'll have to get me and Mizuki,", he said, pointing to Mizuki's body. "back to Konoha."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Once they returned to Konoha, they were greeted by a group of both ninjas and civilians. "Get the demon brat!", someone yelled. They started heading towards Iruka, Mizuki, and the group of Narutos, when a voice said, "Stop!"

"Naruto, congratulations on defeating the traitor Mizuki, and I see you graduated as well.", said the Hokage. "As for _you_.", he said, pointing to the gathered crowd. "Might I ask why you are trying to attack them without even listening first? Naruto has done a great service to this village, defeating Mizuki, who tried to escape the village with the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing. He should be congratulated, not killed, as you were so convinced he should be. Come here, Naruto." He motioned for Naruto to come over. Putting a hand on his shoulder, he said "I'm proud of you, Naruto."

"Thanks, Hokage-sama.", Naruto said, for once eschewing his humorous persona.

** Chapter over! I _hated_ the old version of this chapter with a passion, so I'm glad that I could get a better version completed. This chapter is much the same, in way of actual plot, but this one isn't just transcribing canon (which I had forgotten much of, hence the repeating.) Please review, I want to know what people think of it. If you were wondering why it took so long, it's because I am writing several other stories that I had ideas for. _Uzushiogakure no Yoko_ (or _Uzushiogakure no Kitsune_, I'm not sure which one I'll go with), and _Hanyou no Yoko_ (or, again, _Hanyou no Kitsune._) Okay, that's done, it's _way _too late at night, and I hope somebody's paying attention to this. Again, please review. It takes less than a few minutes, and helps me know what I'm doing wrong (or right.)**

**Something I just noticed. At the beginning of the chapter, my computer must not have saved the changes I made. Aww... too bad for you, I'm too lazy (and tired) to change that right now. Maybe I'll update this, but I doubt it.  
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** Bitshoptyler out!**


	4. Kenjutsu and Konohamaru

**Okay, so the first thing you need to know is, if you have subscribed:**

** GO BACK AND READ THE LAST CHAPTER AGAIN!**

** Unless you are reading this from the beginning, you need to re-read the last chapter. It has been completely rewritten from what it was before. I mean **_**completely**_**. There are maybe two scenes that are the same as from the last version, so go read it.**

** In other news, if you haven't seen already, I have been writing two other stories, **_**Uzushiogakure no Yoko**_** (or **_**Uzushiogakure no Kitsune**_**, I'm not sure which**** one I'll go with****), and **_**Hanyou no Yoko**_** (or, again, **_**Hanyou no Kitsune.**_**)**** I'll publish these stories once I've got a few chapters written, so once they are roughly 10,000 words or so. One is at ~6,000, other is ~4,000. Now you know the reason or my slow update (that and laziness, and I had to rewrite the last chapter.)**

** Once again, I am forced to admit that I do not, in fact, own Naruto.**

**Key to speaking:**

"Someone's speaking"

'**Demon**** speaking, inside mind**'

"**Demon****/Summon**** speaking, outside mind**"

_'I'm thinking'_ (First person)

'Speaking, inside mind'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Naruto awoke groggily, before remembering what transpired last night. '_Yes! I gradated, now I'm a ninja!_', he thought, putting on his signature orange jumpsuit. As he poured a bowl of cereal, he thought about what he was going to do over the next week. As he walked out the door to get his picture taken for the ninja registration book, he decided to grab his latest Fuuinjutsu project to work on, since he'd probably be waiting for a while.

(4 Hours Later)

"Okay Naruto, you're all done, now you're an official genin of Konohagakure.", said the Hokage, giving a small stack of papers to his secretary. "What are you going to do now?"

"Get some ramen", said Naruto. "See you later!"

'Okay, just remember to show up for the ceremony and sensei appointments in a week.", Sarutobi said, as Naruto walked out the door.

A few minutes later, Naruto could be found at Ichiraku's ramen. ordering several bowls.

"So, judging by the forehead protector, I'm guessing you passed.", said Teuchi.

"Yeah, now I'm a ninja, see!", said Naruto, pointing to his headband.

"Yeah, I see, Naruto.", said Ayame, coming out of the back where she had been preparing ramen for Naruto's insatiable appetite.

"Ah, there you are Naruto, I've been looking for you,", said Iruka. "So, what are you doing this week?"

"What do you mean?", asked Naruto. "Why would I be doing something this week?"

"Well, now that you're a genin, you have access to some of the lower level jutsu in the library.", Iruka said. "I just thought you would be excited at the opportunity to learn some new jutsu."

"What!", exclaimed Naruto. "Yeah I'm going there!" with that exclamation, he slurped up the last of his ramen, before dashing off to the library.

"Wow, I've never seen someone so excited to search through piles of scrolls.", said Iruka. "Here, I'll get his ramen for him, he deserves it." He put down some money for Naruto's ramen, before walking back towards wherever he came from.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"So, is this the ninja section of the library?", asked Naruto to the chunin behind the desk.

"Yeah, you're a genin?", asked the librarian.

"Yes. Where's the section for them?", Naruto said.

"Over there.", the bored chunin replied.

"Okay, thanks.", Naruto said, heading over towards the lower section of the library.

Once he got over there, he saw very few people actually inside. '_I wonder why nobody's here._', he thought, looking around. '_I guess I'll just look around and see if I can find anything._', he thought, resigning himself to searching through the room for anything interesting.

(Several Hours Later)

"There's nothing in here, is there?", Naruto mumbled, putting back the last scroll of one shelf. '_There's no way I can get anything here, where am I supposed to learn cool techniques?_', he thought. '_I need something really cool to beat Sasuke__-teme with._' Over the years in the academy, he and Sasuke had become rivals of a sort, Sasuke usually had more cool techniques, but if they continued fighting for a long time, Sasuke would run out of stamina before Naruto was even tired. Naruto never had any real jutsu though, except for Fuuinjutsu, where he was undoubtedly the best of his class, or even the rest of the academy. It helps not to have any competitors. Even Sasuke, when he showed him some basic exploding tags, didn't get how they were produced.

"Can I help you?", asked another librarian, as she put scrolls back onto shelves.

"Yeah, where can I find scrolls with jutsu on them?", Naruto asked.

"Well, you're in a fairly unrestricted section of the library, so you won't be able to find anything much in here.", she explained. "You're a genin, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah.", Naruto said, disappointed in the way things had turned out. He wanted to find something cool, and now he was being told that he couldn't find anything here. "So, is there anything that I _can_ find in this section?"

"Some Taijutsu, and basic Kenjutsu, but not much in the way of Nin- or Genjutsu.", she replied. "I can show you where they are, if you want."

"Yeah, that would be nice.", Naruto responded.

She showed him to a section of the library which was organized much like the archives he had seen yesterday. There were labels for the different types of Jutsu, and the scrolls within were organized alphabetically. He walked over to the 'Taijutsu' section, and pulled out a basic guide, and also one from Kenjutsu.

"So, can I take these home to look at them?", he asked.

"Yeah, just return them when you're done.", she replied.

"Okay, thanks.", he said, walking towards the exit. "So, what was your name? In case I need to find you again."

"Oh, it's Yoko.", she replied, returning to her previous task of organizing the shelves. "If you can't find me here, I'm also on the cryptanalysis squad."

"Okay, thanks.", he said, walking out the door. '_Wait, cryptanalysis, isn't that ANBU? Why would she be at a library?_'

He walked out, and decided to get something to eat. Walking several blocks, he found himself, unsurprisingly, at Ichiraku's Ramen.

"Hey old man, five bowls of the regular.", he said, sitting down.

"Okay, Naruto, right on it.", came Teuchi's reply from somewhere in the back.

Naruto pulled out the Taijutsu scroll. He decided, since he nothing better to do, to start copying the scroll down onto a blank scroll he carried with himself. He would've used a notepad, but he figured it would be worth keeping around, even if he might not use it. Over the three years he had been studying Fuuinjutsu, with Jiraiya helping, when he made it to Konoha (And he wasn't busy 'researching') he had gotten extremely fast at writing, especially when it was just regular handwriting. He figured that it would take fifteen minutes to copy the whole Taijutsu scroll, and another fifteen or twenty for the Kenjutsu scroll. In the meantime, he could enjoy his ramen, which had just made it to the front of the stand.

After he finished the first scroll (and several bowls), he opened the second. '_This one has a bunch of pictures on it, it might take a while._', he thought, glancing through the scroll. '_Also, if I'm going to study Kenjutsu, I need a sword. Maybe I can ask Jiijii about it later._' Turning to Teuchi, he paid him, and walked back towards his apartment.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Once he returned to his apartment, he deactivated the security seal placed on the door (unfortunately, he couldn't do that yet, Jiraiya had helped him with that.) Sitting down, he placed the scroll on the table and resumed copying. After he had copied the whole scroll, he rolled it up, resolving to return it to the library tomorrow.

(The Next Day)

'Here's the scrolls I got yesterday.", Naruto said, handing Yoko the scrolls he had borrowed.

"You're done with them already? That was fast.", she said, looking up at Naruto from across the counter.

"No, but I copied them onto some spare scrolls that I carry with me. It's easier if I just have copies at my apartment.", he replied.

"Okay, but watch out, or your house will look like mine.", she said. "Scrolls and books everywhere there aren't papers."

"I think I'll be fine, I could just put them into a sealing scroll, so I don't need that much room.", Naruto said.

"Oh, where do you get sealing scrolls from?", she asked. "I've seen a lot of them that just don't hold enough, so I'd just have shelves full of them."

"Umm... I actually make them myself,", he admitted. "I've been learning Fuuinjutsu for a few years now."

"Wow, I've only seen a few people that would learn any Fuuinjutsu at so young an age, that's pretty impressive.", she said, impressed that such a young kid would bother learning something that many people would never be able to figure out.

"Well, Ero-sennin taught me, and if you learned it from him, you'd probably be pretty good, too.", he said sheepishly.

"Ero-sennin? Who's that?", she asked.

"Umm... Jiraiya-sannin.", he said.

"Oh, that _is_ impressive, then. So, anything else you need?", she asked.

"No, I think that's it for now. I still need to learn what's in those scrolls before I so anything else.", he said, walking out the door.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"So, Hokage-jiji, can I get one from somewhere?", Naruto asked, speaking of a sword he wanted to get for Kenjutsu.

"Well, let's start you off with something a bit... less dangerous.", the Hokage said, wondering if Naruto could heal from a sliced off hand.

"Aww... but what am I supposed to do with that?", Naruto asked.

"Well, I'll see if I can get someone to tell you about Kenjutsu, okay?", Sarutobi said. "In fact, your Jonin sensei, Hatake Kakashi, knows some Kenjutsu, so he should be able to show you some pointers. Since you got a scroll on it, why don't you just try learning something from there, and your sensei will tell you if you're doing anything wrong."

"Okay...", Naruto said dejectedly.

"Well, I'll get you a practice sword, Naruto.", the Hokage said, pulling out a piece of paper. "Here, just give this to any weapons whop owner, and they can just bill me for whatever you get." He pulled out a piece of paper, writing some stuff on it, before handing it to Naruto. When he read the paper, he saw it was basically an I.O.U. for a Shinai, and _only_ that, not a Super Awesome Sword™, like Naruto wanted. Other than that it was almost a blank check, so Naruto was pretty sure he could get one, no matter how much the shop owners overcharged him.

"Thanks, Jii-san, I'll awesome at Kenjutsu, just wait.", Naruto said, flashing a grin at the Hokage.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

(Several Stores Later)

"No, I'm sorry, I don't think we have any of them.", said one store owner, smirking at Naruto. "I might have a used one in the back, though.", he said, pulling a half-broken Shinai from behind the counter.

"Umm... No, thanks.", Naruto said, turning away. "I'll just be on my way."

'_Great, if this keeps up, I won't be able to get anything from any of the weapons stores, and since Jiijii gave me a paper with my name on it, I can't just Henge into someone else to buy something._', he thought, looking back at the paper. '_Well, there are two more stores this thing's good at, I might as well check out the next one._'

He walked into the last shop, noticing a young girl behind the counter. "Can I help you?", she asked.

"Is your dad here?", he asked, wondering where the girl's parents were.

"Yeah, but I'll be fine, he's eating lunch right now.", she replied. "My name's Tenten.", she said, turning back to the magazine in her lap.

"Okay Tenten.", he said. "I'm looking for a Shinai, where are they?"

"Oh, those are over there, we've got a few, which one do you want?", she asked setting down the magazine, which he now noticed was about swords.

'_Well, it looks like she does know what she's doing here._', he thought, following her over to a wall covered in swords of various shapes.

"Okay, we've got five different types of Shinai, and if you're willing to wait a few days, I can get you one in a custom length. Which one will it be, I'd suggest this one,", she said, pointing to a rod about halfway up the wall. "because it looks about the right length, and isn't too expensive for someone starting out at Kenjutsu."

"Okay, I guess I'll try it out.", he said, as she grabbed a ladder to get the sword down. "I don't really know that much about Kenjutsu, other than the basic stuff I read in the scroll though, so I won't really know the difference between a good one and a cheap one."

"Oh, that's fine. This is plenty good for someone starting out.", she explained. "It might not stand up to some of the hits an experienced swordsman can dish out, but it'll be plenty for you, and it's light enough not to tire you out too much if you practice for hours."

"Okay...", Naruto said, slightly confused by some of the explanations she gave, but it made sense.

"Well, if you get the armour for Kendo while you're here, I'll give you some free kunai too.", she offered.

"I don't know, Jiijii gave me this paper, do you think it'll be okay with him?", he asked, handing her the paper.

"Umm... I don't know.", she said, reading the paper. "Wait, your grandfather is the Hokage?"

"No, I just call him that, but he's pretty close.", Naruto replied, looking at some of the swords on the wall.

"Well, I'll have to get my dad and ask him about this one, but I think it'll be fine.", she said, walking towards the back of the store.

She returned with an older man, who was currently reading the paper Naruto had given Tenten. "I think it'll be fine. Everything seems okay with it, go ahead and find a uniform that fits him.", he said, looking up. "So, you're interested in Kenjutsu?", he asked Naruto. "That's good for you, and you're pretty young to try to learn it. But learning Kenjutsu is something that takes years of practice, it's not just like some Jutsu's you can just pick up and use right away, understand." Naruto nodded. "Good, then, what my daughter said will work is correct, she should be back soon with your uniform, and then we'll just send the bill to the Hokage, right."

"Yes.", Naruto responded. "He told me just to give the owner the paper and they would take care of the rest."

"Okay then, here she is.", he said, grabbing the uniform from Tenten, who had just returned. "Here, just take this back, and tell 'Jiijii' to sort out the payments. Just return this to him.", he said, whiting a number on the paper. "This is how much the stuff cost, so just get him to pay it back some time."

"Okay, I'll do that.", Naruto replied. "Bye Tenten; Tenten's dad."

"Bye Naruto.", Tenten replied.

"Interesting kid.", her father said.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"So, he gave me the paper, and said to tell you to pay it back some time.", Naruto said.

"Okay, Naruto. You can go home, or to Ichiraku's, or wherever you want to go now.", the Hokage replied.

"Okay, bye.", Naruto said, walking towards the door.

"SURPRISE ATTACK!", a boy, about seven yelled, running towards the Hokage.

"What!", yelled Naruto, turning around, to see the boy fall on his face. "What are you doing?", he yelled. pulling the boy to his feet.

"Hey, what are you doing!", the boy yelled. "You tripped me!"

"What! How could I trip you? You're just really stupid! You fell over your own scarf!", Naruto yelled back. He lifted the kid, who was now picking his scarf back up and preparing to hit Naruto, by the collar, and attempted to slap him.

"Hey, what are you doing?", the boy yelled indignantly. "I'm the Hokage's grandson, you can't hit me!"

"SMACK!", went Naruto's hand on the boy's face. "I'm sorry, I think I just did. Did your force field fail there, or what?"

"Wha-What did you do that for?", he said, completely taken aback by Naruto actually _daring_ to hit the 'Honorable Grandson.'

"Your fault, you shouldn't have said I can't do something.", Naruto replied, sticking his tongue out at the boy.

"What?", the boy said, confused.

"I can do _anything!_", Naruto said excitedly. "I'm gonna be the next Hokage, just you wait!"

"Yeah, right!", the boy yelled. "I'm gonna be! Konohamaru, Godaime Hokage!", he said, pointing to himself in a way very reminiscent of Naruto.

'_Those two will be the end of me, I just know it._', Sarutobi thought, staring at the confrontation. "Okay, Naruto, put Konohamaru down. Konohamaru, could you stop trying to attack me every chance you get? You haven't even made it to the desk yet."

"Hmmf. just wait, I'll defeat you and then _I'll_ be Hokage.", he replied.

"Ha! What do you think Hokage is? Even if you _did_ defeat him, you wouldn't be Hokage.", Naruto said, speaking up. "That's not how it works. You have to become a powerful and respected shinobi first, then you _might_ have a shot at being Hokage."

"No, you'll see, I'll become Hokage!", Konohamaru replied.

"Well get in line, brat! I'll be Hokage first!", Naruto said.

"Yeah, we'll see about that!", Konohamaru replied.

"Yeah, we'll see.", Naruto said, before leaving.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"So, are you going to stop following me around?", Naruto asked the box with several eyeholes following him. He may not have been the most astute ninja, but even _he_ could notice a two foot square following him for half an hour. "Are you doing your Snake routine? You know, you might want to get better at disguises before you try to follow a ninja.", Naruto said. "Well, you gonna get out of the box?", he said, before giving up. "Okay, then you asked for it." He ran towards the box, and was just about to kick it as hard as he could, when Konohamaru lifted the box up and ran out.

"Okay boss, I got out, what do you want?", he said.

"Boss? Where'd that come from?", Naruto asked.

"I heard you defeated the Hokage when he caught you.", Konohamaru said excitedly. "Can you teach me how?"

"Wha-? Oh, you mean...", Naruto said, slowing slightly. "Oh, yeah, he fell for **Oiroke no Jutsu. (Sexy Technique.)** I haven't seen _one _guy not fall for that one. And Iruka-sensei calls it a 'stupid technique.'"

"Oh, well can you teach it to me?", Konohamaru begged. "I want something that I can beat my grandfather with. That way people will see me as me, and not some 'Honorable Grandson' like they always call me."

'_Man, this guy sounds a lot like me, even if it isn't for the same reason. I think I should teach him my best technique. Well, besides shadow clones._', Naruto thought. "Okay, I'll teach you the jutsu. It's actually pretty simple, I just henge into a (mostly) naked woman, and guys usually lose consciousness. So, if you know how to do a henge, it just the same hand seals, and I came up with the name myself. Try it, and see what you can do."

"**Hentai no Jutsu! (Pervert Technique!)**", Konohamaru yelled, transforming into a rather chunky woman who looked more like a blow up doll than a person.

"Umm... How about we call that one **Busu no Jutsu. (Ugly Technique.)**", Naruto said, looking at the woman Konohamaru had henged into.

"Hey!", Konohamaru yelled, upset that Naruto had insulted his technique. "It's not that bad."

"Yeah, it is. I've got just the idea though.", Naruto said, adopting a conspiratory grin. "I'll help you go on a scouting mission."

"Where?", Konohamaru replied, excited.

"To get some porn.", Naruto replied, rubbing his hands together ominously.

**And done! Okay, so that's another chapter gone. Bit of a cliffhanger at the end, if you can call it that, but I'll make up for it by getting the next chapter up early. For those of you wondering if Naruto will sign the Kitsune contract, that'll come next chapter. Okay, I'm done, it's way too late at night, and I need to get to sleep, else I would've wrote this up to the point he signs the contract. Bye, Bitshoptyler out!**


	5. Team Kakashi

**Okay, here's the next chapter.**

** Not only have I reminded you I don't own Naruto numerous times so far, now you expect me to do so again? No way!**

** Also, don't review just to tell me Ecchi no Jutsu isn't what I translate it as. I know. It's just been changed some, because that's what most english speakers would think of as 'soft' porn manga. Or do review, I don't really care why you do it, just so long as you _do_ review.**

**Key to speaking:**

"Someone's speaking"

'**Demon speaking, inside mind**'

"**Demon/Summon speaking, outside mind**"

_'I'm thinking'_ (First person)

'Speaking, inside mind'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

** "Ecchi ****no Jutsu! (Soft Porn Technique!)**", Konohamaru yelled, transforming into a teen girl version of himself. "So, how was that?", he asked Naruto.

"Can you _please_ stop making up 'new' names for my technique.", Naruto replied, watching Konohamaru. "Just **Oiroke no Jutsu (Sexy Technique)** is fine."

Konohamaru just stuck his tongue out at Naruto. "So, is it good enough?", he asked.

"Yeah, I think so, just practice some more.", Naruto said. "Hopefully on that teacher you have, that guy's a jerk."

"Excuse me?", said a voice from the opposite end of the clearing. "You speak of me, I assume."

"Wha? Oh, you.", said Naruto, playing off his surprise at the man sneaking up on him. "What do you want?"

"I want to know why the Honorable Grandson would be training with the likes of you.", he replied coolly.

'_Those eyes again. I can't stand the way he looks at me._', Naruto thought, observing the way the man stared at him, as if inspecting a bug. "Maybe because I have something to teach him.", he replied.

"Ha! What could you hope to teach him that I couldn't?", Ebisu said. "Just come with me, I'm your best shortcut to becoming Hokage."

"This!", Konohamaru said, transforming, once again, into a naked, female version of himself. "Wait, why aren't you passed out now?"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!", he yelled. " That's ridiculous, all you're learning is how to act like an idiot, and use stupid techniques. Do you really think that such a disgraceful technique would work on a gentleman such as myself?"

"Yeah.", Naruto replied. "**Haremu no Jutsu! (Harem Technique!)**", he yelled, transforming into several dozen, tangible, naked, female versions of himself. This was too much for poor Ebisu, who's face did what any man's would, and _exploded_ into a nosebleed before he passed out into sweet, sweet unconsciousness.

"Doesn't have to be graceful, just has to get the job done.", Naruto said, walking away from the drooling Ebisu.

"Wow! That was cool, boss.", Konohamaru yelled. "Can you teach me to do that?"

"Actually, I don't think I can.", Naruto said. "It takes a ridiculous amount of chakra to use, so I don't think you could do it."

"Oh.", Konohamaru said dejectedly. "Well, that was really cool anyways."

"Hey!", Ebisu yelled from where he was laying. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, you're up.", Naruto said, looking back at Konohamaru's tutor. "So, what did you say about a shortcut to being Hokage?", he asked.

"_I_", he replied. "am the easiest way for Honorable Grandson to become Hokage."

"Ha! What are you talking about?", Naruto said. "There are no easy ways to becoming Hokage. You have to become such a great shinobi that people _acknowledge_ you as being good enough to be Hokage. There are no shortcuts."

"But I want a great name people will acknowledge me by!", Konohamaru said.

"You're acting like a spoiled child.", Naruto said. "Which I guess you are.", he added.

"Hey!", objected Konohamaru.

"Were you listening to me at all?", Naruto asked. "This is the Hokage title we're talking about, they don't exactly give that to every kid who asks, no matter who your grandfather is. From the day I was born, I have struggled to get _anything _in life. Even when I finally found someone who would accept me, it was still tough going. Do you think you can match that by just wanting a title. Even it you were to defeat your grandfather in combat, that's just not how it works. If you want the title of Hokage, you'll have to prepare yourself."

"Prepare?", asked Konohamaru.

""Yeah, cause there ain't any shortcuts on the road of life.", Naruto responded. "If you want to be Hokage, you're gonna have to kick _my_ ass first!"

"Bah!", Konohamaru replied. "Stop lecturing me as if you've already done anything. I'm not letting you be my boss any longer, from now on, we're rivals!"

"Good.", Naruto responded. "I wouldn't want it any other way.", he said, happy that Konohamaru seemed to be learning to go his own way. "Sorry, but starting tomorrow, I'll have to take care of my duties as a ninja of Konohagakure. I won't be able to teach you any of my perverted techniques. One day, though, we'll fight for the title of Hokage, and I'm looking forward to it."

"You got it, Boss!", said Konohamaru happily. Naruto thought that if Konohamaru had a tail right now, it would be wagging like a dog being petted.

"I thought I wasn't your boss anymore, Konohamaru.", said Naruto, amused.

"Oh. You got it, Naruto!", he said, still just as happily.

"Let's go, Honorable Grandson.", said Ebisu.

"That's not my name.", said Konohamaru.

"Okay. Let's go, _Konohamaru_."

The Hokage stared at Naruto and his grandson through his ball. He knew Naruto still had a long way to go to becoming Hokage, but it was nice to see that Naruto and Konohamaru were getting along, and Konohamaru _did_ learn something, even if he hoped he would never use it. '_Finally, Ebisu is calling Konohamaru by his proper name, I guess I'll see if anyone else will follow __his example._'

He sat back in his desk and reflected on the current generation of shinobi from Konoha. '_There's no question about it, the new generation surpasses the last. Naruto, I'm getting too old for this job. I hope you will be able to take over once I'm gone, it'll make all of us proud._', he thought, looking over at the faces on the Hokage monument, and especially at the Yondaime's. It could just be his delusions, but he thought he looked proud. '_Minato, if you could only see your son now. He's going to be quite the character when he grows up._' Though, thinking of the people that brought him where he was, it wouldn't be surprising.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Naruto woke up the next day and looked at the new forehead protector sitting on his dresser. '_Yes! First day as a real ninja, this'll be awesome!_'

He prepared his breakfast, and had to try to avoid choking on the spoon in his cereal, he was so excited. After finishing, he grabbed his standard orange jacket, pockets full of scrolls, weapons, and anything else he could think of packing for everyday situations, and walked out the door. Now even the occasional call of "demon brat" could tarnish his good mood.

As Naruto walked into the class, more derogatory comments started flying at him. "Hey, what are you doing here, loser? This class is only for people who graduated.", yelled Kiba.

"Shut it, dog-breath, what's on my forehead?", Naruto responded. "I graduated, just like the rest of you."

Naruto walked over to Hinata and sat down. "Hey, Hinata.", Naruto said. Hinata just blushed in response. "Aw, come on, can't you at least say hello?", Naruto asked.

"H-Hello, Naruto-kun.", Hinata said, pushing her fingers together in a nervous habit. "Ho-how are y-you?"

"Good, how about you?", Naruto responded.

"Pretty g-good. All of the clothes have been c-cleaned from your prank earlier this week.", she said, visibly gaining confidence as she spoke.

"Oh, I guess that's good. Have they bothered you any more?", Naruto asked.

"No, b-but they'll start up again soon.", she said. She was slightly worried, she loved (or at least lusted after) Naruto, but there was a fairly strong possibility of her getting the caged bird seal if she was to actually acknowledge him as more than a friend. '_I guess there'll be plenty of time for the situation to improve._', she thought.

"Glad to see your stuttering is improving.", Naruto said. Earlier in the year, even, she would stand a good chance of passing out just from being in this close a proximity to Naruto, much less talking to him fairly normally.

"Y-Yeah.", Hinata responded.

"Hey, Sasuke, you got any new fangirls recently?", Naruto asked Sasuke jokingly. "I think Sakura's about to jump your bones."

Sasuke looked over towards Sakura, who had just walked into the door. She saw the empty seat next to him and clearly thought that today would be the day Sasuke agreed to go on a date with her. "Ugh.", Sasuke muttered. This was not going to go well for him. "Naruto, come sit over here.", Sasuke said, hoping for someone else to occupy the seat Sakura was clearly headed towards. "Naruto!", he yelled, as the Pinkette started walking at a faster pace.

"Huh.", said Naruto, engrossed in his conversation with Hinata. "Oh, okay." Naruto started to walk towards Sasuke, but just as he had made it past the Uchiha, Sakura grabbed him.

"Where do you think you're you going, Baka!", she yelled.

"Ugh. To get your spit off my face, now can you let go of my arm?", Naruto said, stretching his jaw to try to regain some of his lost hearing. "Seriously Sakura, let go of my arm."

"Wha- Oh.", she said, shoving Naruto away from herself.

Naruto let out a huff of air upon landing on Sasuke. He then realized, a few second later, the position he was in, and quickly pulled himself off of Sasuke. "Agh! Totally not a kiss!", he yelled, trying to deny what looked like a Yaoi scene. At least their mouth's didn't touch, though it was bad enough nobody else could tell that.

"Agh!", yelled Sasuke. "What was that for, you dobe!"

"Naruto, what are you doing! Sasuke's mine!", yelled Sakura. 'That was so hot!', added Inner Sakura. 'What, no! I'm not into that stuff!', argued Sakura. 'You sure, I'm pretty sure _I'm you_, so actually, you _do_ like that stuff.', her Inner countered. 'Shut up.', was Sakura's only response.

"Naruto, you've stolen Sasuke's first kiss from me. Now it's time to pay...", she said, pulling a kunai out from somewhere in her rather tight outfit.

"But Sasuke didn't steal mine...", Naruto said, pointing towards Hinata, who promptly fainted at his accusation. When she came to, she realized everyone was staring at her, and fained again. "Besides, I think Sas_gay_'s into the guys, myself.", added Naruto, smirking at the flustered Uchiha.

"What! What are you doing Naruto!", yelled an infuriated Sasuke. "That's disgusting!"

"Oh, so you weren't trying to grope me there, 'cause that's what it felt like...", said Naruto, smirking. Sasuke had done no such thing, but was too flustered to try to refute the claim.

"Naruto, Sasuke loves me!", yelled Sakura. "Not some guy, and especially not you!"

"Oh, why don't we ask Sasuke?", said Naruto. "So, which one is it?", Naruto asked.

Sasuke quickly thought. On the one hand, there was an annoying fangirl who seemed to want nothing more than to shove him into a back alley as soon as she could find him alone. On the other hand, he had Naruto, who was obviously joking. If he had to pick one over the other, he would say Naruto, since he knew the blond was just kidding, but it seriously hurt his chances of reviving his clan... "Oh, I'll just keep you guessing, Sakura. Right Naruto?", he said, sending him a 'help me out' glance.

"Yeah, definitely the guys.", Naruto said, infuriating Sasuke.

"What!", yelled Sakura, turning towards Sasuke. "Y-You love me, don't you?"

"Umm... I'm going to say_ no_.", the Uchiha said, hurting Sakura. "That _doesn't _mean I love Naruto though."

Just as their confrontation was coming to a close, Iruka walked in. "Okay, time for your assignments.", he said. "Now, you're real ninjas, congratulations on that. However, you still have a lot to learn. That is why we assign Genin to three-man teams under a Jonin sensei. You will practice teamwork, your skills, and other things that will be helpful for a ninja to know. Any questions? Good, now, team four will be..."

Iruka continued on for a while, but all Naruto paid attention to was "Team seven is Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata, and Uchiha Sasuke. Your Jonin sensei is Hatake Kakashi.", said Iruka. Hinata was elated at being placed onto a team with Naruto, Naruto felt the same, though slightly less so. Sasuke was indifferent, as always. He figured, though, that being on a team with Hinata and Naruto was better than being on a team with either Ino or Sakura, or even worse, both of them. He almost shuddered at the thought.

Iruka continued to name teams, but Naruto was no longer listening. As the teams' respective Jonin senseis came and gathered their teammates, Team seven started wondering where their sensei was. Naruto suddenly had inspiration for a prank, and picked up an eraser, crushing a piece of chalk enough to cover the eraser with powder.

"What are you doing with that, Naruto?", asked Hinata.

"You'll see.", was his cryptic reply. He cracked the door open slightly before placing the chalk covered eraser between the two sliding doors. He closed the door, reopened it, and pushed it shut again. He rushed back down into his seat in case his sensei showed up early. Well, he wasn't early, not anymore, at least.

"Hey dobe, what are you doing? Our sensei is an elite ninja, he's not going to fall for that.", said Sasuke.

"Well, I guess we'll see, won't we.", Naruto said, before pulling out a scroll and brushes and starting to work on his latest Fuuinjutsu project. He was trying to combine an explosive shrapnel tag - an explosive tag with scrap metal sealed in a storage seal in the same tag - with a sealed henge jutsu, which would allow it to take another shape. If he finished, he could copy the seals, and possibly sell them back to Tenten's dad. He was interested in some of Naruto's weaponized seals, and was one of the only people to ever welcome him into a shop without trying something.

Just then, their sensei opened the door, dropping the eraser into his face. "Hmm... Well, my first impression of this team is... I don't like you very much." At this, the team sweatdropped. "Meet me on the roof, we'll get to know each other some more."

After a minute, all of team seven were gathered once again. Kakashi started the introductions. "Okay, I want everyone to start introducing themselves. I want to hear some things about you, likes, dislikes, dreams, things like that. I'll start."

"My name is Hatake Kakashi. I like being private, I don't like sharing stuff about myself, and, hmm... I guess I have hobbies, and dreams...", Kakashi said, fading off mysteriously near the end.

'_Wow. That's got to be the most evasive description I've ever heard someone give about anything._', were the thoughts of most of the members of team seven, barring the sensei.

"You next, blondie.", Kakashi said, pointing to Naruto, who said "Me?", to which Kakashi responded with a sarcastic "Yes, I mean you."

"Okay. I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I like fuuinjutsu, it's neat. And ramen, I love ramen, especially the kind that old man Teuchi makes, it's really good. And I hate that you have to wait, I mean for your ramen. When you make it, I mean.", Naruto said, obviously excited.

'_Fuuinjutsu, that's pretty interesting. I guess, judging from both his father _and _his father's sensei having been seal masters, it's to be expected. Wow, he loves his ramen. I guess it should also be expected, given his mother. His father too, to some extent. Will he ever stop talking about his ramen though?_', Kakashi thought, noticing the boy had now moved on to if Miso or Pork ramen was better, but Suicide Ramen was the worst, because he couldn't very eat much without his face feeling like it was on fire. "Okay, onto your dreams, Naruto.", Kakashi said, trying to distract Naruto from the topic of ramen.

"Oh yeah, my dream is to is to become Hokage. I'll be a better Hokage than any others, and then the village will acknowledge my existence!", he said, yelling near the end.

"Okay, interesting. Next you, Hyuuga.", he said, pointing to Hinata.

"M-my name is H-Hyuuga Hinata." she said. "I like Naruto, I guess, and I also like my sister Hanabi. I dislike the Hyuuga elders, they're always punishing me, and they're the ones who give everyone caged bird seals. My dream is to become clan heir, so I can unify our clan, and get rid of those cursed seals forever." When she started talking, she was fairly quiet, like her normal self, but when she reached the end, she was nearly yelling. All her teammates could tell this was something she cared strongly about. After she noticed everyone staring at her, however, she turned beet red and sat down.

"Okay, now you, emo.", Kakashi said, pointing to Sasuke.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I don't really like anything, and I don't really dislike anything. I guess I'm pretty neutral. My _ambition _is to kill a certain person, and get revenge.", he finished.

"You don't mean me, right Sasuke.", said Naruto jokingly.

"Okay, two people.", said Sasuke.

"What! Why?", said Naruto, still lightly.

"Because, I swear, if you converted my fangirls into Yaoi fangirls, I have no choice.", said Sasuke, dead serious. Naruto gulped.

"Okay, that's enough.", Kakashi said, hoping Sasuke was joking. '_He really wouldn't kill an ally over that, would he?_', Kakashi wondered. He would normally assume Sasuke was joking, but he knew the Uchiha could be mentally unstable, and he had to make sure Sasuke wouldn't start killing his allies for power. "We will start our duties as ninja tomorrow."

"Yay! What kind of duties, sensei?", asked Naruto.

"Something I'm sure you're all familiar with. Survival training.", replied Kakashi.

'_Survival training, didn't we do that at the academy?_', was the thoughts of the members of team seven. Naruto even voiced his thoughts. "Oh, don't worry, it's not training for survival.", he said, calming the gathered ninja.

"It's to see if you survive as shinobi. There are, as we stand now, nine teams, 27 people, that graduated. That number of teams is going down to less than three. It's an extremely tough exam, with over two thirds failing rate. Take care you don't join that number. Oh, and also, don't eat any breakfast. You'll lose it."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

**Yay! Another chapter done. Next chapter, the 'test.' Okay, one question. If the test supposedly has a two thirds failing rate, and I'm assuming here that people **_**do**_** fail the test, at least occasionally, because the Hokage said Kakashi never passed **_**anyone**_**, how exactly is it that nobody ever fails? Think about it, it makes sense. My opinion is that the whole 'second test' thing is a lie, but what do they do? Do they send people back? What happens if someone truly isn't fit ****to be ninja? Would they choose another from their class to take their place? What's going on?**

** Anyway, I've been stuck with a broken laptop **_**and**_** phone for the past week, so I've been running Ubuntu off a USB key to do anything. Surprisingly, it hasn't been much of hindrance (I run Ubuntu anyways, so I'm used to it, and as long as my laptop didn't shut down I didn't lose anything, and I don't shut it down anyways, so... yeah.)**

** I'll probably have the next chapter out tomorrow, or the next day (edit: I've already finished it before releasing this one) I've got a good idea what will happen (and you probably at least **_**think**_** that you do) so it won't be too hard to write. As you can tell, the characters are slightly different. Naruto gets along better with his classmates, mainly because he was friends with Hinata. How they met is the same as in canon, just he actually payed some attention to her, instead of going after Sakura. Sasuke is more agreeable, mainly because I **_**hate**_** canon Sasuke. I don't like bashing, and I've seen plenty of Sasuke-bashing stories, so I won't do that here, and I hope never **_**to**_** do that. Sakura (hopefully) gets over her fangirl tendencies, being away from Sasuke. Maybe some ideas on Sakura pairings (though it's a little early to be worrying about that.)**

** Another interesting thing I found is that there probably is no team four (which is what Iruka was saying earlier.) No real info there, but if you know who was assigned to what team numbers, please contact me so I can change it.**

** Please, please, **_**please**_** review, thank you, and Bitshoptyler out!**


	6. Battle!  The Genin Examination

**New chapter time! Note that I am not translating common Jutsu (Shunshin, Rasengan, etc.) more than once.**

** I would like to thank an Anonymous Reviewer for pointing out the whole 'second test' is just a plot hole, as well as some other things I thought were interesting as far as plot holes went. Thanks, for knowledge for knowledge's sake is just fine in my book.**

** Disclaimer: You already know what should go here, why do you need to see it every chapter?**

**Key to speaking:**

"Someone's speaking"

'**Demon speaking, inside mind**'

"**Demon/Summon speaking, outside mind**"

_'I'm thinking'_ (First person)

'Speaking, inside mind'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Naruto arrived at the practice field on time, just like Hinata and Sasuke. They looked around for their sensei, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"He said 8:30, right?", asked Naruto.

"Yeah.", was both Hinata and Sasuke's reply.

"Then where is he?", Naruto asked.

They waited until almost 10:15 for their sensei to show up, before he suddenly appeared in a **Shunshin (Body Flicker)**. "You're late!", all of team seven yelled.

"No, you're early.", Kakashi responded with his signature jutsu, the eye-smile. "So, did you take my advice and not eat breakfast?", he asked. "Well, either way, here.", he said, pulling out an alarm clock and several bells. "So, these are bells. There are two of them.", their sensei explained, as if talking to a young child.

"Okay, so?", said the ever-impatient Naruto.

"There are three of you. You need to get a bell. Since there are two bells, and three team members, one of you will be going home. Get it?", he said, jingling the bells in his hand. "Now, you need to get these bells by noon. Those who cannot get a bell by noon, not only get no lunch, but get to watch me eat their lunch in front of them. Get it? Good. You can use anything you've got, and you must come at me with the intent to kill, or else you don't have a hope of getting them."

"Ha!", said Naruto. "You couldn't even dodge a dropped chalkboard eraser, how are you going to get out of the way of a shuriken?", he taunted.

Suddenly, faster than any of the genin could see, Kakashi was standing behind Naruto, kunai at Naruto's throat. "Like this.", he said.

'_Oh no, we're so outclassed it's not even funny._', thought Naruto.

"You know Naruto, in the real world, people that bark the loudest have the least bite. Well, the rest of you can ignore 'Dead Last'-kun here and start when I say go."

'_Dead Last, huh? I'll show him. I've got just the thing._', thought Naruto. "Hey, Hinata, Sasuke, I've got an idea!", he yelled.

"What?", said Hinata, as her and Sasuke edged towards Naruto.

"Recognize these?", he whispered, pulling out several scrolls. The scrolls had bands around them with the picture of a steaming bowl of ramen.

"Yeah.", Sasuke whispered back.

Naruto whispered something in Sasuke's ear, before turning to Hinata and doing the same.

"Ahem. Could you break it up? I'd like to start the test.", said Kakashi, interrupting the team's conversation. Naruto slid the scrolls back into his jacket as quickly as he had removed them, before turning back towards his sensei.

"Yeah, sure. Whenever you're ready.", Naruto said, calmed down a bit from earlier.

"Okay. Three. Two. One. Go...?", Kakashi said.

As soon as he had reached go, the team dropped to the ground. Naruto pulled out the scroll from earlier and applied chakra to the band running around the scroll. He waited a few minutes, confusing Kakashi who had never seen a technique like that before. Suddenly, the band disintegrated, and the scrolls rolled open to reveal three steaming bowls of ramen, complete with chopsticks.

"Umm... What are you doing?", asked Kakashi.

"You said we had until noon to get the bells, why do you care what we do until then?", Naruto said, clearly pleased at having outsmarted his sensei. "Besides, we're not going to be fighting at our full potential if we're hungry, so I think it's time for a snack." With that, team seven dug into their food, grateful of Naruto's ramen obsession for once.

"Ah... Whatever. I'll be over by this tree once you're done.", Kakashi said, sitting under a tree and pulling out a little orange book.

Once team seven finished eating their ramen, Naruto resealed the dishes into the 'food' scrolls, and informed the others of a plan he had come up with. "Okay, Hinata, you just book it into the forest over there. Once you can't see us with your Bakugan anymore, turn around and head back. I want you to stay just in your field of vision the whole time. Me and Sasuke are going to be staying here, and after a minute, I want you to run back. We'll start fighting, and when you get here, attack him from behind. We do this right, we should be able to get some bells."

"Umm... Who w-won't get a bell?", asked Hinata.

"I don't know, I guess we'll decide after we get them. Ready?", he asked.

"Ready.", they replied.

"Okay, let's go!", he yelled.

Kakashi, who had been expecting one of them to rush at him, looked up with mild interest at the two standing there, while Hinata ran full speed into the forest. '_Hm. Looks like they actually __bothered with a strategy. I wouldn't have expected that, given the files I got on them._', he thought. He figured Naruto would rush at him blindly, maybe almost make him look up from the book, and then get his ass kicked, but he just stood there with Sasuke.

"Go!", Naruto yelled after a minute of waiting. He and Sasuke both ran at Kakashi, who once again looked up from his book with mild interest, before blocking a clumsy kick from Naruto and a not-so-clumsy one from Sasuke. '_Hm. I guess their skill levels are about where I expected, but where's the third?_' Just after saying that, he realized what their strategy must have been, and turned around, finding a young Hyuuga girl had almost cut the bells off of his pants with a kunai.

"Oh, that was pretty good, but you'll have to do better than that to get past me.", said Kakashi, who had not looked up from his book more than twice during the whole fight. Naruto and Sasuke were getting angry at the jonin's total lack of care that they were attacking them.

Kakashi started forming a hand seal, which Sasuke noticed. "Scatter!", he yelled, but it was too late for Naruto, who was too close to Kakashi. "**Konohagakure Hiden Taijutsu Ōgi: Sennen Goroshi! (Konoha's Secret Finger Technique: One Thousand Years of Pain!)**", he yelled, before proceeding to, ahem, give Naruto a 'super powerful ass poke.'

Naruto went flying into a lake, where he surfaced a few seconds later coughing and sputtering. The other two had taken Sasuke's advice and fled, and were now watching the confrontation from bushes outside of the field. Naruto quickly made his way out of the field, before sticking a sealing tag onto his clothes.

"You're lucky all my scrolls are waterproof!", he yelled back towards Kakashi. Kakashi just Hm'd and went back to reading his book. Naruto took the now drenched sealing tag and threw it into the lake. It had absorbed all the water from his clothes, but it was only a single-use tag.

Naruto made his way to where he thought the others would be, only he didn't find them. '_Where could they be?_', he thought, before being pulled up into a tree.

"Hey Naruto, what are we doing?", asked Hinata.

"I... I don't know. We're just so outclassed by this guy it's insane.", Naruto admitted.

'_If I can't defeat this guy, how am I supposed to defeat Itachi and have my revenge?_', Sasuke thought. "I'll go out there.", he said, dropping down from the tree.

"Wait, what are you doing Sasuke?", yelled Naruto. "Get back here, we need a plan!"

"I'm fine Naruto, unlike you I don't let people get behind me and shove me into a lake.", responded Sasuke.

Once Sasuke got back to where Kakashi was, he waited on the outskirts of the field. '_What am I supposed to do? There's no way I can sneak up on him, He's in the middle of a quiet field. I'll either be heard, or spotted, or both. I'll have to make a diversion._', he realized then that he _should've _brought Naruto along, as he could probably blow up something to create the distraction Sasuke needed. '_Oh well, I've got some explosive tags, but they're five-second timed ones. I'll need __to thrown them at Kakashi-sensei to do anything._'

Sasuke did, indeed, throw several explosive tags at the jonin, who saw the kunai, but now the tags behind them. '_What is he trying to... OhshitOhshit!_', he thought, running away from the tags that he knew didn't have long to burn before he would be caught in the blaze. The explosive tags detonated behind him, shoving him in the back before a wave of heat caught up to him. He hit the ground, protecting his precious book, before getting back up to see Sasuke walking towards him.

"I'll admit, that was pretty good. I'm glad I got out of there.", Kakashi said. "You might've singed my book, and then I would've had to be responsible for killing one of my students."

Sasuke was infuriated at his again uncaring attitude. "What are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed!", he yelled.

"You know, if you want to defeat Itachi, you're going to have to get a lot better than this pathetic attempt. You know that, right?", Kakashi said, trying to see what the Uchiha would do when angered.

"Shut up!", yelled Sasuke, blindly charging at Kakashi. "I _will_ defeat my brother and avenge my clan!"

"Uh huh, sure. Why don't we work on making me look up from my book first?", Kakashi said.

"Why you!", was all Sasuke managed to get out, before noticing a strange sight in the sky. '_Is that... Is Naruto trying to kill me!_', he thought, noticing the object in the air was a kunai with a tag tied to it.

Kakashi noticed it and several others from different directions. '_What is he doing?_', he wondered. '_It looks like he's not giving me an opportunity to escape, but he wouldn't try to blow up his teammate, would he?_' Either way, he realized that he needed to get both of them out of range of the explosive tags coming towards them.

"Oh, no you don't.", said a group of Naruto's running towards him with kunai in their hands. There must have been fifty of them, easily. '_So that's how he got those tags to come from different directions, he must have had clones throw them. But those aren't normal clones, they're shadow clones. How does he have enough chakra to do that? Must be because he's a jinchuuriki. I wonder if all of them can do that?_' All of his thoughts had taken place in the several seconds that the explosives were in the air around him, but once they landed, Kakashi started getting very worried. '_Two. One. Zero._', he counted mentally, but the explosion never came.

Instead, a Naruto came out of the circle of clones, with a paper tag in his hand. "Hey Kakashi; emo.", he said. "As you may have noticed, the tags didn't go off. I have here, the controlling tag. All I have to do is send some chakra into this, and not only do the tags on the kunai in the center explode, but every clone here is carrying at least twenty more rigged like that, myself included. Hand over the bells, and I give you the detonator, if not... Well, they'll be finding your body parts in the desert, get it?"

Kakashi nodded, but said "Well, I don't really like either of those choices, so how about you stop this insane plan to blow up your teammate, and retreat."

"Why would I do that? I'm not going to be hurt, well at least not the original me.", said 'Naruto' "You can't leave Sasuke, and there's no way you're making it out of this circle of clones without leaving him. What'll it be?"

Kakashi swore at Naruto calling his bluff. "Okay, I'll give you the bells, just don't blow us all up.", he said. He pulled the bells off of his belt, before handing them both to Naruto, who stuffed them in his pocket.

"Well, thanks, sensei. I guess you aren't so bad after all.", said Naruto. "Also, boom." As Naruto said this, the tag in his hands started to glow. "Nice knowing you."

Kakashi looked back at Sasuke, but in his place was a Naruto clone. '_Dammit._', he thought, running out of the circle as fast as his legs (and Shunshin) could carry him. He realized that all throughout the field were more explosive tags, which had started to glow now too. That's when he realized he was screwed whatever he did. All he heard was a soft 'ping' as his world became white.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"Move, teme!", yelled Naruto at Sasuke, who was running alongside him. "Can't you go any faster, this whole place is going to blow any second now!"

"I'm running, don't you think we're far enough, we've got to be 150 metres out by now.", said Sasuke, confused as to how he went from standing next to Kakashi surrounded by Narutos ('_So... much... orange._') to running for his life, apparently, alongside him.

"No, we're not nearly far enough, but I couldn't see past that to have a clone Kawarimi.", Naruto explained. Just as he finished, they were pushed forwards and shoved into the ground by the combined explosive force of almost 2000 explosive tags.

Naruto spared a second to look back at the explosion, but all he could see was white, and his eyes were hurting from the brightness. '_I hope Kakashi-sensei makes it out of there, I don't want to have to explain how we killed our sensei on the first day._', he thought. He once again laid on the ground as a wave of heat washed over him, probably singing his clothes and hair, too.

After the explosion finished, Naruto looked back towards where the training ground once was. Where once there was a small field surrounded by trees, all that remained now was a ten or fifteen meter crater in the ground, and no sign of his sensei or the trees in the surrounding area. He had received memories of his clones showing him that Kakashi had been running out of there so fast he was only a blur, but he still wasn't sure if he'd been okay. However, after looking at what the explosion had done, he had more important things to concern himself with.

"That was awesome!", Naruto yelled, looking at the crater, and surrounding area. "Did you see that, Sasuke?", he asked. "Sasuke?"

"Is my head on fire?", Sasuke asked. "Because it feels like it."

"Um... no. I think your hair is a bit shorter in back now though.", Naruto responded honestly.

"Damn, that was one huge explosion.", Sasuke said. "Where'd you even get that many explosive tags?"

"Oh, I didn't.", said Naruto. "I used a seal replication seal, along with a sealing scroll. As long as I have tags and ink loaded in the scroll, I can keep making basic explosive tags."

"You've _got_ to teach me that some time.", Sasuke said. "Anyways, let's meet up with Hinata, our sensei probably found her by now."

As Naruto saw a rare smile on Sasuke's face, he thought to himself '_Who knew, turns out the Uchiha is a firebug._'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Once they found Hinata and their sensei talking, Naruto interrupted them.

"Hey, sensei, now that we got the bells, do we pass?", asked Naruto.

"Yeah, sure. Just decide who gets to head back to the academy.", Kakashi answered, knowing this would trick Naruto.

"Umm... how about, none of us.", Naruto said.

"Not an option.", answered Kakashi.

"And why not?", Naruto asked. "We got the bells, we make the rules."

"Hm... Well, I guess I could let you guys pass, just this once...", he said, giving them the famous Kakashi Eye Smile™.

"Yay!", said Naruto, rushing over to hug his sensei.

"Oh, and Naruto, what makes you think you got the bells?", said Kakashi.

"Huh?", said Naruto. Hinata giggled slightly, her sensei already having shown her what he meant.

"What makes you think I gave you the bells?", he asked again.

"Well, you gave them to me.", answered Naruto.

"Ah. Look underneath the underneath, Naruto. "Deception is a ninja's favorite tool. Their bread and butter, if you prefer."

"But, you gave me the bells.", Naruto repeated.

Kakashi, in response, just pulled the bells out of his pocket. "Genjutsu, Naruto.", he said, again giving an eye smile. Naruto searched his pockets, but could not find any trace of the bells that he thought were there.

"You're very weak against it, genjutsu. Remember, underneath the underneath.", Kakashi said.

'_He controlled the whole thing, from start to finish._', Naruto realized. "But why... Why'd you let us pass if we didn't get the bells?", Naruto said, plainly confused.

"Because the point isn't to get some bells, or defeat your sensei, or anything like that.", Kakashi responded. "Look underneath, all that, Naruto. Why are ninja's put on three-man teams?", he asked.

"Um... so that they can, um.. assist each other.", he said.

"Exactly. How are you supposed to help someone if you don't get along with them?", Kakashi asked. "The point of this exercise was teamwork. Teamwork _will_ save your life some day, and you'd best not forget it."

"But why were there only two bells?", Naruto asked again.

"Sasuke, can you tell him why?", Kakashi asked.

"It's so that we'd be tested to see if we could work together, even when someone would have to give up something.", Sasuke answered.

"Good job, Sasuke. Hinata, would you work together with Naruto?", he asked.

"Y-Yes.", she answered.

"Are you sure?", Kakashi asked. "Your self-confidence is lacking, you seem like the person who would rather hang back than be up front. That's where Naruto would be, he's the 'one-man-army' of the group. The one who would walk into a group of enemy shinobi and just start slicing and dicing. Could you work with him in that environment?", he asked, seriously.

Truthfully, Hinata wasn't sure. She didn't think she could stand being in a place like Kakashi had described, but she couldn't just stand back and watch Naruto do everything, and possibly get hurt. "Yes.", she answered confidently.

"Good. That's what we'll work on. Hinata, you have issues, both psychologically and in how you perform as a shinobi. Naruto, you're too impulsive. Twice during the fight you tried to get through the most direct way, and both times it cost you. I'd bet you're still feeling that **Sennen Goroshi (One Thousand Years of Death)** from earlier, aren't you?" Naruto rubbed his butt in response. "However, you're an amazing strategist, and came up with several good ideas, especially when Sasuke was trapped. Finally, you.", he said, pointing towards Sasuke. "You're definitely the strongest as a fighter, and probably the smartest. But forget Hinata, you're the one we need to take to a psychologist. You went berserk on me when I mentioned Itachi, and attacked impulsively. That made you an easy target. You can't give into rage, or hate, it'll just breed inside you until you are overcome by it. Don't let that happen. Now, congratulations on making genin. You'll be a great team. Now, who wants something to eat?"

Everyone on the team smiled and yelled "Us!", before following Kakashi out of the training ground.

**Yay! Another chapter done! Two chapters, easily more than 6,000 words, closer to 8,000, done in roughly 2 ½ hours. A new record (for me). Anyways, please review and all that good stuff.**

** I have another story I just put out, I'd appreciate it if you would check out my author page.**

** Also, some of you are going to complain that this chapter is way off canon, or that Naruto is OOC or something because he actually **_**came up with a smart plan**_**. Yeah, that may be OOC, but this is fanfiction, so stop your whining. I'm doing this for **_**free**_**. I challenge you to find something just as good that's free. If it has adverts, it doesn't count.**

** This is sort of a repeat from my rant last chapter, so feel free to ignore my ramblings. Has anyone else ever wondered about the whole graduation system though? It seems crazy. There's the exam, **_**then**_** the senseis weed out the losers? What? How about an exam that includes fighting. You know, like **_**the chunin exams**_**. It's just a weird system, if you ask me. Which I know you didn't, but you're reading this, aren't you? If so, than don't complain when you realize I don't actually make much of a point in this whole paragraph. **

** I think I've come up with a decent schedule for this story, at least for now. About a chapter or two every weekend, and that leaves me plenty of buffer room for if I have an 'off week', or can't get to a computer. I've got a few chapters lined up already, as well as other stories with several chapters written though, so I'm not sure how long I can keep it up.**

** Anyways, you don't care what I'm doing outside of FF, so all I've got to say is... Bitshoptyler out!**


	7. DRanks and Journey to Wave

**New chapter time. Has anybody else noticed problems with the 'stats' page in their profile recently, all of my stats stopped working from about midday Saturday to midday Tuesday.**

** Anyways, on with the story.**

** Disclaimer: You already know what should go here, why do you need to see it every chapter?**

**Key to speaking:**

"Someone's speaking"

'**Demon speaking, inside mind**'

"**Demon/Summon speaking, outside mind**"

_'I'm thinking'_ (First person)

'Speaking, inside mind'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Team seven met at the same training field the next day, as Kakashi told them to at dinner last night. "So... How late do you think Kakashi-sensei will be this time?", Naruto asked.

Sasuke thought about it a minute, before answering with "About an hour and a half."

"No way.", Naruto said. "He'll be longer than that."

"No way, no jonin is going to be more than an hour and a half late for something.", Sasuke said.

"Wanna bet?", Naruto asked, pulling out his wallet, 'Gama-chan'.

"Sure.", Sasuke said, "How much?"

Naruto pulled out several coins. "200 Ryo.", he said (about 20$). "Two hours fifteen minutes... at least."

"You're on.", Sasuke said. They gave there money to Hinata, who Naruto asked to hold the money to 'make sure it was fair.'

"Well Sasuke,", Naruto said. "I guess we'll see who's closer, won't we?"

"Sure.", Sasuke responded, before sitting at the base of a tree to wait.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

(Two Hours, Forty-Five Minutes Later)

"Yes!", Naruto yelled as Kakashi appeared in the small clearing in a puff of smoke. "Pay up Sasuke!"

Sasuke grumbled some at seeing the money he had brought for lunch disappear.

"See, Sasuke. Never bet against Uzumaki Naruto!", Naruto said.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever.", Sasuke grumbled.

"Ahem.", Kakashi said, interrupting the two genin. "While I'd love to stay around and watch you two, we have missions to do."

"Yes!", Naruto yelled again, excited at the prospect of doing 'cool ninja stuff'. "So what missions are we doing?", he asked. "Maybe rescuing a princess, or escorting an important person somewhere, or maybe fighting bandits, or bounty hunting, or..."

Kakashi interrupted him. "Well, I actually have a few missions lined up already." Kakashi smirked inwardly at seeing Naruto's excitement. '_This is almost sadistically fun._', he thought. "Let's see...", he said, pulling out a scroll. "We've got the choice of...", he built up a dramatic pause.

"Yeah?", Naruto asked.

"Moving furniture,", Kakashi said, much to Naruto's dismay. "or if you don't like that, there are others. For example, we could weed a garden." Naruto's face fell further. "Oh, wait. Here's a good one. This one is rescuing the daimyo's..."

"What? His what?", Naruto asked. "His daughter, or maybe his wife. An important courier?" Kakashi shook his head at all three.

"His wife's cat, Tora.", he said, finally bursting Naruto's bubble.

"What!", Naruto (and Sasuke) yelled. "Those aren't missions, they're just glorified chores."

"Chores they may be, but they are important exercises.", Kakashi explained. "They help build teamwork and trust in your teammates, and get you used to working in a professional environment."

"They're still wastes of time.", Naruto grumbled.

"Be that as it may.", Kakashi said. "They are a important and necessary part of your shinobi career, and you need to do them, just like every other ninja in the world has had to. So just follow me, we need to get a mission assignment." Naruto grumbled some more about 'stupid chores', but still followed Kakashi to the hall where they would be assigned missions.

Once they arrived at the mission hall, Kakashi asked the chunin attending one of the desks for a D-rank mission. He received a scroll, which he read and briefed the team on. "Okay, I've got a mission for you three.", he said. "There's a farmer who needs a field cleared; just some rocks and things."

"Hai!", Naruto said, determined to finish the mission as fast as possible. The others also added their own "Hai"s, albeit less excited at the prospect of a d-rank mission, before all three of them followed Kakashi to the farm they would be working at.

When they arrived at the man's farm, he escorted them to a field behind the house and told them to get started. All three of them responded with "Hai"s, before starting work on the field.

They had been clearing rocks from the field for an hour when Naruto discovered a rock too heavy to life by himself. He tried shouting for the others, but they were either too far away to hear, or just didn't want to hear him. Naruto stared at the rock for a few seconds before an idea came to mind. Placing his hands in the Tiger seal, he shouted "**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Shadow Clone Technique!)**" Making three clones to help him, Naruto was able to get the rock out of the ground and carry it to the edge of the field.

After setting the rock down and dispelling the clones, Naruto realized something. Once again placing his hands in the Tiger seal, he yelled "**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Shadow Clone Technique!)**" This time however, instead of making three clones, he made 100. Wordlessly, the clones began separating into groups. 80 of them left in pairs to gather rocks, and 20 of them stayed at the edge of the field to pile the collected rocks into a wall.

"Good thinking Naruto.", Kakashi said, observing Naruto's clones doing most of the work in the field. "You made creative use of the resources you had, you're thinking like a shinobi."

Sasuke, seeing Kakashi praise Naruto's efforts, was slightly jealous. '_Why is he praising the dobe, he's not even doing any work, just the clones are._', he thought, observing Naruto's clones at work.

"Okay, come on in.", Kakashi said to the team once they (mainly Naruto) had finished. Not only had the field been cleared of all the rocks, but a decent-sized wall had been built around the perimeter, and all the weeds and grass had been pulled up, and burnt by a **Katon Jutsu (Fire Release Technique)** from Sasuke.

"Now that we're finished with the mission,", Kakashi said. "Let's grab some lunch, and in the afternoon we can train." All the team members responded with hungry "Yay!"s, but groaned when Naruto suggested Ichiraku's.

"We ate there yesterday Naruto, and you can eat there for dinner.", Sasuke said. "Besides, you took my money earlier, I should choose."

"First, I won it fair and square.", Naruto said. "Besides, I think Hinata-chan should decide, don't you think?"

Sasuke grudgingly agreed, and they both turned to Hinata and awaited her decision. The shy girl blushed at everybody staring at her, but eventually stuttered out "T-There's a barbecue place I-I know some classmates said was good." Naruto and Sasuke both thought that was fine, so they all headed to the barbecue place Hinata mentioned.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

Once they got there, they noticed several other teams of their classmates were already eating there. Team eight, Shino; Sakura; and Kiba; were with their sensei, Kurenai, and team ten, Ino; Shikamaru; and Chouji; were also with their sensei, Asuma. Once Ino and Sakura noticed Sasuke, they both stood up and asked Sasuke to sit next to them. Sasuke simply ignored them and sat down at another table. Naruto sat on one side of him, Hinata on another, with Kakashi taking the seat opposite. Of course, that didn't stop the two fangirls, who drug their chairs over from their team's tables to sit next to 'Sasuke-kun.'

"Hinata, I don't think we should ever come here again.", Sasuke said, observing the two fangirls fight over who got to the table first. Hinata didn't say anything, but inwardly agreed slightly. This place was way too crowded for her tastes, she wanted somewhere private with Naruto... '_Ugh. Bad thoughts!_', she chided herself, before noticing her food had arrived. All three teammates said "Itadakimasu!", before digging into their food.

Naruto asked Sakura and Ino where their food was. Both of their teammate's orders had just come out, but neither had anything to eat. Ino told him she was on a diet, and Sakura just said she wasn't hungry and that it wasn't any of his business.

"Why in the world are you on a diet?", Naruto asked. "You're a kunoichi, there's no way you could _possibly_ get fat."

"How do you know?", Ino replied. "Look at Chouji." Chouji sent her a not inconsiderable amount of Killing Intent before returning to his food.

"Chouji's not fat, he's just built that way.", Naruto responded, for which Chouji thanked him. "His whole family's techniques relies on him being able to burn any excess amount of fat in his body for energy, and it wouldn't even be _healthy_ for him to be skinny."

Ino scoffed at Naruto before turning back to stare at 'Sasuke-kun'. Naruto also scoffed back at her, this time at the girls' stupidity, before turning back to his food.

Once the team had finished eating, Kakashi took them to a training field. Unlike the last one, this one had a stone in it, with numerous people's names on it. "Do you know what this stone is?", Kakashi asked. None of them answered, so he continued. "This stone... is a monument to the heroes of this village.", Kakashi explained.

"I'm going to get my name on that stone too!", Naruto said tactlessly.

"Are you sure?", Kakashi asked. "Because all of the names on this stone... are of dead people." Naruto's face fell at hearing that. "They all died serving our village. Many people I regarded as friends have their names on that stone, and my best friend and teammate also has his name on it."

"I'm still going to get my name on that stone.", Naruto said, though less excitedly. "I'm just going to make sure it's a long, _long_ time before it's there."

"That's very noble of you Naruto, but are you sure you mean that?", Kakashi asked. "You can say that all you want _now_, but it won't help you if you freeze up and get someone killed later on in another mission."

Naruto thought about that. It was true he thought that he could do something amazing, but _thinking_ it would not help him once it came down to _doing_ something. "I won't do that.", Naruto said. "And I never go back on my word."

Kakashi gave an eye-smile to the three of them. "Now, the reason I've taken you here after that mission is to show you the difference between what you call 'glorified chores' and a real mission. To my knowledge, nobody has ever died on an in-village d-rank. That changes as soon as the mission gets harder. One or all of you may not come back from one of these missions, and I guarantee the other two of you will feel like shit for the rest of your _lives _because of it.", he explained. "But the goal should be to make sure that doesn't happen. Remember, your comrades come before the mission. If you have a choice between sacrificing the mission and sacrificing someone's life, you sacrifice the mission, unless there is an overriding reason not to."

Kakashi again gave them an eye-smile. "But for now, don't worry about that. Now is training time. Naruto, the Hokage told me you have been studying Kenjutsu some. Mind showing me what you can do?", Kakashi asked.

Naruto unsealed his Shinai from a scroll he carried inside his jacket. He performed some of the katas the scroll he had gotten showed, and asked Kakashi if he was doing them right. Kakashi corrected him some, but otherwise told him he was doing fairly well, for a beginner. Kakashi then told him to form a dozen shadow clones. Naruto complied, but then asked him why.

"You read the scroll on shadow clones, right?", Kakashi asked.

"Yeah.", Naruto responded.

"So what is the main point of a shadow clone?", he asked.

"Information gathering. You send a cone somewhere so the original doesn't have to risk is life, and when the clone is dispelled, the original gets its memories.", Naruto said, nearly perfectly reciting what was on the scroll.

"Very good Naruto.", Kakashi said. "It works the same way with what you are doing now. Clones cannot help you get stronger _physically_, but they can help you learn things faster."

"So... how does this help me with kenjutsu?", Naruto asked. "It would be strength, wouldn't it?"

"Ah, actually no,", Kakashi said. "since you're not trying to build up strength. what you're actually doing is trying to get used to the motions you need to go through. That requires that you have enough training to instinctively _know _what to do. If you use your clones to help, it should take less time than it normally would to learn, and depending on how many clones you make, it should make it take that much less time. For instance, if you made one clone, it would take half the time, two clones, a third the time, and so on. With the numbers of clones I've seen you make, it should take no time at all to learn techniques that would take months, or even years, to learn normally."

"Okay.", Naruto said. It seemed simple enough, just make a bunch of clones and have them work on something until it was perfect. Kakashi told both Naruto and the dozen clones he had made to start fighting in pairs, so they could work out what the weaknesses in each other's styles were. After he had started with Naruto, he moved on to Sasuke. He mainly focused on strength training for Sasuke, and the same for Hinata. After several hours of training, Kakashi called them all back in for a meeting.

"Okay, here's how training is going to work for now.", Kakashi explained. "In the morning, we'll do a D-Rank, or, if you get better, an in-village C-Rank. After we're done with the mission, we'll have lunch. Once we're done eating, we'll work on training. Naruto, you'll work on chakra control, taijutsu, and kenjutsu with your clones. You have ridiculous amounts of stamina, but you can't put it to good use without proper chakra control. Sasuke, you work on strength training and taijutsu. You're mainly oriented towards speed, just like the rest of the Uchiha, and strength would be a good thing. Hinata, we'll work on strength training and endurance. After training, all of you will fight against me. No rules, just try to defeat me in combat. After we're done with training, if you want, we can eat dinner, or you can go straight home. Anybody have problems with that?" Nobody disagreed with Kakashi's training regiment, so he simply said "Good, do you all want to eat dinner with your team today or not?" Everybody wanted to eat with their teammates, so they decided (read: Naruto bugged them enough) to go to Ichiraku's.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

He had to get out of the village. They had captured him before, and they would do it again if he let them. That was why he was running away from that despicable place as fast as his legs would take him.

He didn't know why they had left him with one of the cruelest women he knew to be tortured, but he had managed to escape once again. By now, he had managed to escape so many times that he had almost given up hope of getting away from his captors. But not quite. As long as he could get away, he would keep trying, until the day he could, once and for all, escape from the village. Once he made it across the edge of the clearing, he would be home free. Wait, was that someone behind him? He ran faster. Just a little more to go now...

"Gotcha!", Naruto yelled, picking up a hissing cat with a bow in its ear. "Ugh. This is the fifth time I've had to catch this stupid thing, can't we do something else?"

"Hmm...", Kakashi said, thinking. "Well, your teamwork _is_ getting better, and I think you're all doing decently with your training, so... yeah."

"Really!", Naruto said, excited at the prospect of doing something besides manual labor and catching Tora, who was still trying to claw his face off.

"Yup.", Kakashi replied. "I think you're ready for a simple C-rank, so we'll have one tomorrow. I'll let you go early today to rest up and get ready for leaving, so you can go home right after we drop this cat off at the mission hall."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

That was what led to the team's current waiting for their sensei in the 'memorial stone' training field. The had, so far, been waiting on Kakashi for an hour, with no sign of him ever getting there.

"So, what do you think we'll do?", said Naruto. "I bet it'll be something cool, don't you think so Sasuke? How about you, Hinata?" Naruto continued rambling about the 'cool' mission that the team would soon be doing, too busy talking to let Sasuke or Hinata get a word in edgewise. Eventually Kakashi made an appearance, halting Naruto's excited, and rather one-sided, discussion with his teammates.

"OK, you're all here, I guess we're ready to go.", Kakashi said, looking at the assembled (and excited-looking) team.

"So what are we doing, Kakashi-sensei?", Naruto asked.

"I don't know, we'll see when we get assigned a mission.", Kakashi said. "Once we get to the mission hall, I'll just ask them for a C-rank mission instead of a D-rank."

Team seven headed to the mission hall, where Kakashi asked the attending chunin to give them a C-rank mission. The chunin complied, handing them a scroll, and sending them out to meet their client. Once they saw him, all of them stared in disappointment. He was an old man, carrying (and drinking from) a bottle of sake in his hand. He seemed similarly disappointed.

"What's this?", he asked. "I ask for a ninja escort, and instead I get a bunch of kids and their babysitter. And what about that short one there, he looks like he should be in school right now."

All three of the genin on team seven lined up to compare heights. "Damn!", Naruto said, noticing he was the shortest. "Hey! Watch who you're calling short. I'm Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, and already one of the best seal masters in the village!" In truth, he _was_ good at seals, but the only reason he was considered good in the village was his lack of competition. He didn't have to mention that though.

"Ha! A brat like you, Hokage?", the man scoffed. "I'd sooner be Hokage."

Kakashi spoke up. "Well, they're better than you think, and I'm a high-ranking jonin, so whatever comes up, I'm sure we can take care of it."

"Hn.", the man grumbled in a way reminiscent of Sasuke. "Well, whatever. Let's get going, I've got to get back to Nami no Kuni (Land of Waves), and I want to get there soon, if you can get going."

"Okay.", the three genin grumbled. They started walking out of the village, towards the land of waves.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"How long is it going to take, Kakashi-sensei?", Naruto asked. "We've been walking for hours."

"It'll be a while, Naruto.", Kakashi replied. "Wave isn't exactly next door, and it takes a while to walk everywhere, especially with a drunk civilian with us." Said drunk civilian glared at Kakashi slightly before stumbling. "As I said, drunk civilian. Anyways, we need to walk to the point where we can get to the coast, and from there secure passage across the water."

"You mean get a boat?", Naruto asked.

"_Yes_, Naruto.", Kakashi replied. "I mean get a boat."

They walked for a while longer without anything happening, when they came across a strange sight. Kakashi noticed a puddle in the road, even though it hadn't rained in nearly a week. He didn't say anything about it though, preferring to see how his students would handle it. As expected, the 'puddle' genjutsu was soon dispelled, and two people jumped up, holding a chain. They immediately went after Kakashi, and, surprisingly, won. They jumped into the air, wrapping their chain around him. Kakashi only had time to mutter a "What?", before they reached the ground, pulling the chain taut. It ripped Kakashi into several chunks, and covered the ground in blood.

"Who's next?", one of them said threateningly. "Leave the old man and we'll only send you back with _minor_ injuries."

"No way!", Naruto yelled, rushing at them with a kunai.

"Ha!", one of them said. They also ran towards him, trying to use the chain in between them to slice Naruto's head off. Which it did, but not before 'Naruto' could place several explosive tags on the chain. He then dispelled in a puff of smoke, confusing the two. They then realized what he had done, but were too late to avoid being hit by the combined force of five explosive tags, pushing them both to their respective ends of the chain. One of theirs' gauntlet ripped apart, completely destroyed by the force the chain pulled it with, and the other of the two ninjas looked as if they had dislocated a shoulder. The one with the destroyed gauntlet fell to the ground, clutching what was left of his hand, which had mostly been ripped off, along with part of his arm. The other tried futilely to pull his shoulder back into position, but, failing, grabbed a kunai in his other hand to resume fighting.

"Brat! Guess who's getting killed next.", he yelled, running towards the group. "Now I don't care _what_ you do, none of you are getting away."

Sasuke acted next, pulling out a kunai and fighting the injured ninja with it. He seemed to be doing fairly well, until the other caught him by surprise, hitting him with his other arm, which Sasuke thought was immobile. Just as Sasuke was about to be beaten, Kakshi came out of the tree he was sitting in.

"I think that's enough.", he said, observing the startled enemy ninja, who now had a kunai held at his throat. Kakashi quickly cut the man's throat open, pulling him to the side so the blood wouldn't get on Sasuke. "The Demon Brothers of the Hidden Mist.", Kakashi said, pointing to the two, one of which was dead, the other missing most of an arm, and trying desperately to stop the flow of blood. "Chunin from Kirigakure. What might they be doing here, hmm?"

Kakashi walked over to the remaining ninja. "So, what were you doing? Trying to get me? The old man? Who?"

"W-We were paid to kill the bridge builder, that's all.", the man stammered out.

"Okay.", Kakashi said, turning around. The Kirigakure shinobi sighed, before Kakashi turned back around and put a kunai through the top of his skull. "Now that that's taken care of, would you mind telling me why this is a C-rank mission, even though there are enemy ninjas after you?", he asked Tazuna

"Please, I couldn't pay for a B-rank. I just need to get back to wave to finish the bridge. Once we get back there, I can pay you for an A-rank, just get me back there safely.", Tazuna begged.

"Well, we're out of the mission boundaries.", Kakashi said. "If I had any sense at all I would turn around right now and leave you here. But I don't, which is why I'm going to ask my students if _they_ want to stay. So, should we keep going?", he asked the three.

'_There's no way I'm returning from my first mission as a failure._', Naruto thought. "Of course! We can't just leave him to die out here.", he said.

'_There's no way the dobe's getting this one, I'm going too._', Sasuke thought, before also acknowledging in the affirmative. Hinata didn't seem to care one way or another, so she just agreed with her two teammates.

"Well, it's your lucky day, isn't it?", Kakashi said to the grateful bridge-builder. "Let's get going, we want to get to wave, don't we? Naruto, take care of those two." Kakashi pointed to the two 'demon brothers'. "If you want, you and Sasuke can probably get the bounties on them, just seal their bodies into a scroll." Naruto did so, pulling a storage scroll out from his jacket and sealing their bodies in it, to be returned to a bounty office later.

With that, Team Kakashi continued on to Nami no Kuni, leaving behind them the forests of Hi no Kuni (Land of Fire).

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"You what?", an irate midget in a business suit said, glaring at a man sitting, relaxed, on a couch. "How could you fail, it was a team of genin and their _babysitter _of a jonin. How could your 'Demon Brothers' possibly fail against them? I paid you to get rid of that bridge-builder, not dawdle all day here, relaxing on a couch."

Before the short man could react, a ridiculously large sword was at his neck. "Don't worry, Gato. I'll have them taken care of.", the man on the couch said.

"Just make sure that you do.", said a shaken-up Gato. "I don't want any more failures."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. With the same sword now resting on your shoulder, I'll cut off their heads. There's a reason I'm called the Demon of the Bloody Mist, Momochi Zabuza."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

**Wow, that one took **_**forever**_**. I'm not sure what happened, it was a fairly short chapter. For some reason, it just sat at the 2,000 word mark for a while. I've been pretty busy this past week (and a half), and haven't had time to update, or something like that. I think I'll stick to weekly updates from now on, since I'm working on a third story, and a possible fourth one in the works, but I'm going to try to limit the amount of stories I'm working on at one time, so I'll probably cut it down to two or three.**

** Anyways, it's getting kind of late for a weekday (if you consider 3:00 am **_**late**_**, as opposed to **_**early**_**), and I need some sleep, contrary to popular belief.**

** (SHAMELESS PLUG WARNING.) Look for an update of my other story, **_**Hanyou no Yoko**_** soon. (Thinking of changing the title to **_**Hanyou no Kitsune**_**.)**

** Review, or the Giant Fox of DOOM****™ will get you.**

**Bitshoptyler out!**


	8. Fight! Kakashi vs Zabuza

**New chapter! Not too much to say here, so on with the story!**

** Actually, one thing to ask: This is for 'quinisrael', who added this story to 'Favourites' nearly a month after I last added a chapter. How did you get to reading this, being it **_**has**_** been nearly a month since I updated (which I am extremely sorry for, by the way)? Were you just randomly searching through stories, or were you looking **_**specifically**_** for this one? (Yeah, right.)**

** Disclaimer: Blah blah blah, don't own Naruto, blah blah blah.**

** Key to speaking:**

"Someone's speaking"

'**Demon speaking, inside mind**'

"**Demon/Summon speaking, outside mind**"

_'I'm thinking'_ (First person)

'Speaking, inside mind'

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

After several people denying passage across the water, they finally found an old man willing to row them across to Nami no Kuni. Unfortunately though, they would be stuck on a small boat for several hours with only the rower's company in the meantime. Naruto, and, if they were honest, the other two, couldn't take much more of it.

"This boat's driving me crazy!", Naruto finally yelled. "What are we doing? Start the motor and get going, I'm sick of this!"

"Naruto, stop yelling.", Kakashi said, looking up from his book. "We're trying to be _stealthy_, if you know what that means, and you yelling has probably alerted anyone for a mile around to where we are. Either way though, we should see land soon."

Kakashi was right, for out of the mist appeared a structure of stone and girders, stretching most of the way across the water. "Is that the bridge?", Naruto asked.

"Yup.", the bridge-builder replied, staring with some pride at the structure. "We're just about there."

After a few second of silence, he started again. "You... sensei. There's something I need to tell you about this mission."

"Oh?", Kakashi said, barely looking up from his book.

"Y-you were right about this not being a C-rank mission.", he said. "In fact, there's actually a very powerful man after my life."

"Oh?", Kakashi said again, this time looking up from his book to make eye contact with the bridge-builder. "Who's that?"

"The shipping tyrant Gatou.", he said. "He appears to run a shipping company, but that's not even close to what actually happens. When he moved into Wave, he started intimidating everybody else that would ship things out to here to stop, or if that didn't work, he would simply burn their warehouses and buy whatever was left afterwards. On the outside, his company is just another shipping business, albeit a fairly large one, but one the inside, there's nothing even remotely legal he does."

"Once he had almost all the shipping business in and out of the country, he started putting a stranglehold on everything here. Nearly everybody here either works for him or pays him ridiculous fees just to not have their homes burnt down. Once he was the only one in control here, he started moving his base of operations to Wave. We used to be a thriving country, now the whole country is like Gatou's bitch, doing whatever he wants. He moves drugs, weapons, whatever he wants through here, and nobody's stopping him. Now he's moving mercenaries and nukenin into the country, and I'm not even sure what he wants _them_ for, but I think he's going to try to take over another country around here. We need to stop him, and this bridge is the way to do it. If we just get rid of the stranglehold Gatou has on this country, we could once again be a thriving country. As it is now though, we can't even get enough _food_ into here to feed everybody."

"Wow. That's horrible.", Naruto said, shocked.

"Exactly, that's why I've got to get back and finish this bridge.", Tazuna said.

The remainder of the trip to Wave was spent in silence, nobody wanting to interrupt the quiet between them. Eventually though, they reached the shore, where the man with the boat bid them farewell and left back across the water. Once again they had a fairly uneventful trip through the forest until suddenly Naruto and Kakashi heard an odd whistling sound.

"Down!", Kakashi yelled, pushing Hinata to the ground, while an ridiculously large sword cut the air above their heads and embedded itself in a tree.

"What was that?", Naruto asked from his position on the ground. He then saw the sword stuck in the tree above their heads. "Oh."

"The **Kubikiribouchou (Decapitating Carving Knife)**", Kakashi said, looking at the sword embedded in the tree. "That means…"

"Momochi Zabuza, at your service.", a man said, jumping onto the sword embedded in the tree before bowing sarcastically. He was pale, with bandages covering the bottom half of his face. He had a sheath on his back, assumingly for the impossibly large sword he carried around. He also wore a kirigakure hitai-ate sideways on his head, but instead of the normal symbol, his was scratched through, marking him as a nukenin.

"Momochi Zabuza, the Kirigakure no Kijin (Demon of the Hidden Mist)", Kakashi said. "I guessed so, given the demon brothers earlier. You're here for the bridge-builder, aren't you?"

"Guessed right, Sharingan no Kakashi.", Zabuza replied. "So, you going to hand him over the easy way?"

"Guys, get back.", Kakashi said. "This guy's on a whole new level compared to the rest. Against him, even I'll admit it'll be a little tough, without this."

After saying that, he pulled up his hitai-ate, revealing another eye. This one, however, was red, and had a three-tomoe design. "Ah, I'm honored, Kakashi. I get to see the famous sharingan."

'_Sharingan!_', Sasuke thought, staring at Kakashi. '_No way! He isn't an Uchiha. What's going on here?_'

"Sharingan?", Naruto said. "How?"

"Surround and protect Tazuna.", Kakashi said to his team. "Your teamwork here is to stay out of the way. This guy's too much for you."

"Hurry up, I want to kill the old man and get this over with.", Zabuza said, causing team seven to jump. "But Kakashi, it seems I'll have to kill you first, ne? "

Zabuza jumped over onto the water near them, standing on it. "**Suiton: Kirigakure no Jutsu (Water Release: Hiding in Mist Technique)**.", Zabuza whispered, disappearing in a rapidly thickening mist growing from the water.

"Damn, how'd he know?", Kakashi said. "The sharingan can't see through this mist."

"Eight targets.", Zabuza said from somewhere in the mist. "Liver. Lungs. Spine. Clavicle vein. Jugular vein. Last, and certainly not least, the brain. Which one should I choose?"

Hinata gulped, byakugan activating out of instinct. "Sensei!", she shouted. "I can see him!"

"Oh, you can girl, that's interesting.", Zabuza said. "But can you do anything _about_ it?"

Suddenly, without any discernible movement, Zabuza switched places. '_I can't even keep up with him, even with the byakugan._', Hinata realized. '_How am I supposed to help sensei?_'

Suddenly, a massive killing intent filled the air, turning Hinata into what amounted to a pile of quivering jelly. '_W-What is this?_', she wondered.

Beside her, Sasuke was nearly as affected. '_This is the killing intent of a jonin._', he though, sensing the ever-growing KI in the air. '_This is insane. I can't take this, I'd rather die now._'

Nearly against his will, his hand began raising a kunai to his neck. Beside him, Naruto, who seemed relatively unaffected by the amount of KI the two jonin were emitting , saw him.

"What are you doing!", he yelled, shoving Sasuke's arm down. "You're trying to kill yourself! I guess you really are emo."

"Thanks.", Sasuke said, eyeing his arm suspiciously. "I don't know what that was…"

"Don't worry Sasuke.", Kakashi said. "I don't let my comrades die." '_If only…_'

"Oh?", Zabuza said from the mist. "We'll see about that."

Suddenly, he appeared out of the mist, running towards team seven's students, who were grouped around Tazuna. With Hinata lying on the floor and Sasuke still slightly trying to fight off… his own arm, Naruto was left to try to defend them. He defensively grabbed a kunai, standing in front of Tazuna, and growled at Zabuza.

Zabuza never made it, though. Instead, midway through, he was tackled by Kakashi. "Nice try!", Kakashi said. "But it'll take more than that to threaten my students and charge."

Zabuza sprang up, pushing Kakashi off him. They both stood in front of each other, neither so much as twitching. Suddenly, Zabuza rushed towards Kakashi, but instead of directly attacking, jumped over him in a flip, bringing the sword down on him in mid-air.

To his surprise, Kakashi was unable to retaliate in time, resulting in Zabuza slicing him across the head. However, instead of blood rushing out, Kakashi simply dissolved into water.

'_**Mizu Bunshin! (Water Clones)**_', Zabuza thought, watching Kakashi dissolve into a puddle. '_But there's no way he could've copied my techniques in the mist._'

"Oh, that was certainly impressive, Kakashi." Zabuza said. "You had your clone distract me, while you were actually hidden in the mist around me, observing."

"Oh, so you've figured it out, have you?", Kakashi said, walking towards Zabuza. "Too bad, I was going to use a great strategy against you, but obviously you have everything figured out, don't you."

Zabuza, instead of attacking Kakashi, simply ran into the forest.

"**Byakugan.**", Hinata said again, determined to find Zabuza. This time, unlike the last, she _did_ find him, but instead…

"Sensei, he has several clones spread around to confuse you, but the real one is in front of you.", she yelled to Kakashi.

"Thanks, Hinata.", Kakashi said.

"So, the byakugan, eh?", the real Zabuza said, walking towards Kakashi. "Well, I guess I can't just clone spam you, can I?"

"Nope.", Kakashi answered, giving him an eye-smile. "Guess not."

"Well, I guess it doesn't matter either way, does it?", Zabuza said. "Because I don't need clones to win this."

With that, Zabuza disappeared in a burst of speed, reappearing behind Kakashi, who turned to deflect his sword with a kunai. They locked blades for a half-second before Kakashi ducked beneath his, aiming to thrust the kunai into Zabuza's stomach.

Instead, Zabuza quickly brought his knee up to connect with Kakashi's head, before flipping back out of range.

They both engaged in a standoff, circling each other, Kakashi holding his kunai, Zabuza with his sword. Suddenly, Zabuza again rushed towards Kakashi, who barely deflected the sword again, forcing it to pass millimetres above his head. He was unable, however, to block the sword coming back resulting in its passing through his body, before once again dissolving into water.

"Dammit.", Zabuza cursed, before listening for the copy-ninja to attack.

After a few seconds of waiting, he did indeed attack, jumping through the air to try to attack Zabuza from above. Zabuza brought his sword above his body, attempting to slice Kakashi as he came down above him, but Kakashi twisted violently to the side, angling his fall away from Zabuza. Once he reached the ground he brought his kunai down towards the back of Zabuza's neck, before Zabuza twisted around to deflect Kakashi's hand with the back of his arm.

Without waiting, Kakashi brought a kunai up with his other hand, which Zabuza was unable to avoid entirely, resulting in a long, but shallow, gash across the front of his chest.

"You'll pay for that, scarecrow.", Zabuza said, bringing the sword down towards Kakashi, who barely managed to duck underneath it to head-butt Zabuza in the chest. Zabuza was lifted bodily by the simple attack, before flying back several feet.

He returned to his feet just in time to deflect another kunai from Kakashi, bringing his sword up towards Kakashi's chest.

Kakashi jumped above the swing of Kubikiribouchou, before bringing another kunai down towards Zabuza, who ducked away from Kakashi, bringing his sword up to prevent Kakashi from following.

Zabuza once again moved towards Kakashi, holding his sword beside him as if to bring his sword up in a diagonal swing. Instead, he used his sword as a counterweight, bringing his leg up to kick Kakashi in the side of the head, sending him flying.

Kakashi landed in the water, swimming below to retreat before attacking again.

"Wrong move, scarecrow.", Zabuza said, walking over to the water. "**Suiton: ****Suirou no Jutsu (Water Release: Water Prison Technique)**.", he said, bringing part of the water (and Kakashi) up into a sphere.

'_No! I can't do anything from in here!_', Kakashi thought.

"Heh. Makes it a little tougher when you can't move, doesn't it?", Zabuza taunted. "Oh well, I'll take care of you later. **Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu! (Water Clone Technique)**", he yelled, forming a clone to attack team seven.

"**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! (Shadow Clone Technique)**", Naruto yelled similarly, forming ten clones, which formed a line between team seven and Zabuza. The clones all growled aggressively at Zabuza, holding kunais in defensive positions.

"Hm…", the Zabuza clone said, looking at the clones. "That's pretty neat, for a kid like you to be able to create shadow clones. You're something else, most_ jonin_ couldn't create ten. But you're still going to lose, do you know why?"

"No.", Naruto answered. "I'm not going to lose."

"Yes you are, you're weak.", Zabuza taunted. "You're all from a weak village, with weak leaders, weak students, and most of all, _weak ninja_."

"That's not true.", Naruto said. "Kakashi is proof of that, if nothing else."

"Oh, he may be an exception.", Zabuza said. "But do you know why? He was forged in war."

"In war?", Naruto asked, now confused.

"Yes.", Zabuza answered. "But you, all of you, have been coddled, treated like kids, instead of the killers that you should be."

"What?", Naruto said. "That's not true."

"Oh?", Zabuza taunted. "By the time I graduated, my hands were already stained with blood. And not only me, do you know how shinobi in Kirigakure graduated?"

"No.", Naruto answered. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"For any students to graduate in Kiri…", Zabuza said. "You had to fight another student of you class, _to the death_."

Naruto gulped at the thought of the training that Kirigakure shinobi went through. "Oh, so you think killing people makes you stronger?", he said. "Then I'm much stronger than you."

"Oh, why's that?', Zabuza taunted.

"Because… I had killed before I was even in the academy.", Naruto answered, staring at the ground.

"Oh?", Zabuza asked, interested. "A Konoha shinobi like you? How'd you manage that, brat?"

"I've been living by myself since I was thrown out of an orphanage when I was six. Every year, on my birthday, I would be chased by a crowd of people trying to kill me. Compared to me, your life's probably been the cushy one."

"Oh, is that so?", Zabuza said. "Well, as much as I'd love to have an emo-off to see who had the worst life, I _would_ like to complete my mission."

"I'm not done yet.", Naruto said. "When I was eight, a man attacked me. Not only attacked me, he _killed_ me. Managed to rip most of my chest out. Even then, I still… I blew him up. Literally. From the inside. And when I graduated… I had to kill one of my teachers."

"But, if you think that was bad, you haven't heard _anything_.", Zabuza said. "When I graduated, I didn't go through the final test."

"Oh?", Naruto said. "But you're telling me you had your hands bloodied by the time you graduated."

"I did.", Zabuza said. "But I didn't say I didn't kill anybody. Instead of being put in a one-on-one fight, I opted to kill everybody."

"That's right. A class of more than one hundred students.", Kakashi said. "And you killed them all, in a single day. That earned him the moniker 'Demon of the Hidden Mist'."

"That's ridiculous, why did you do that?", Naruto said.

"They never again forced that test on students after that.", Zabuza said. "Some sacrifices are necessary for the greater good. That was one of them. As I'm sure the people that you killed were."

"Thanks?", Naruto said, confused. "But I'm still going to defeat you. Sasuke, I have an idea."

"Oh?", Sasuke said. "What's that?"

Naruto quickly whispered something to Sasuke, who nodded. He took something from Naruto, before running off to outflank Zabuza from behind.

Meanwhile, Naruto and his clones faced Zabuza's clone. Not waiting for Zabuza's clone to attack, the Naruto clones all rushed towards him at once.

Immediately, Naruto's clones started dispelling in puffs of smoke. '_Only one has to make it_', Naruto thought, watching them.

"Two. One. Boom", he said, watching the clones, of which two were left. Suddenly, once he got to the 'Boom', the one remaining clone exploded, blowing Zabuza's water clone to droplets.

"Hm.", Zabuza said, watching the clones. "Pretty good kid, you got one of my clones."

Just then, Sasuke ran at Zabuza, jumping above him, to drop a piece of paper from right above him. Sasuke then dove under the water.

'_Damn, if that's another explosive tag, I have to move, but I can't release Kakashi._', he thought, watching the slowly descending piece of paper. Just as the paper started glowing blue, symbolizing the seal activating, he gave up, pulling his hands out of the water prison to dive underwater.

'_Wait, what about me._', Kakashi thought from the water prison that had yet to fully dissolve. '_Oh, why does he just _love_ watching me explode?_'

Before Kakashi was fully able to free himself, the explosive tag went off, resulting in what turned out to be a much weaker blast than normal, much to Kakashi's relief.

"Hm.", Zabuza said, once again standing on land. "I'm actually impressed kid. Actually using your head, I didn't expect that of a genin. You also managed not to blow up your sensei, which is good for you. I half-expected him to be out of this."

Kakashi then jumped from the water to the shore, joining Zabuza, while Sasuke had run back to where team seven was standing.

"So, we're back where we started, ne?", Kakashi said. "Well, it'll be easier this time, I can guarantee."

"Don't think so highly of yourself.", Zabuza yelled, running towards Kakashi, sword in hand. Kakashi brought a kunai up to deflect the sword, bringing the kunai down towards Zabuza's head. Zabuza knocked Kakashi's arm back with one of his own, while Kakashi dropped into a low sweeping kick. Zabuza jumped over Kakashi, flipping forward and twisting to face him again.

They immediately ran at each other again, Zabuza bringing his sword down in a vertical swing towards Kakashi, who quickly turned away from the cutting edge of the blade, shoving the back edge to throw Zabuza off balance.

Zabuza took a second to recover form with his large and heavy sword, which Kakashi exploited to stab him in the side of the chest with a kunai.

Zabuza gasped in pain at the kunai which had been stuck between his ribs, while Kakashi continued with a high reverse roundhouse kick to Zabuza's wrist, likely breaking Zabuza's wrist, as well as knocking his sword towards team seven, where Naruto picked it up.

Kakashi moved towards Zabuza with a kunai, ready to cut his throat open, when suddenly several senbon shuriken sprouted from it. Zabuza immediately collapsed to the ground. Kakashi checked for a pulse, but he was dead.

Near where team seven was, a masked ninja dropped from a tree. "Thank you for defeating Zabuza for me, I would not have been able to do so on my own.", he (she? It?) said, walking to Zabuza's body. "I will be taking this back to Kirigakure.", they said, picking Zabuza's body up.

"A hunter-nin of Kirigakure.", Kakashi said to his team, looking at the masked ninja. "They destroy the bodies of nukenin, to make sure no enemies can derive secrets from them."

"Could you please hand me his sword?", the hunter-nin asked Naruto. "I need to return it to Kirigakure, and as part of the Seven Swordsmen's swords, it must be returned to its proper place."

"Why?", Naruto asked tauntingly. "If Kirigakure needs it, they better pay. I helped defeat him, it's my sword for now. You can have it back for oh… 50 million."

"What!", the hunter-nin yelled, incredulous, before regaining composure. '_I can't fight all of them at once, especially whilst defending Zabuza-sama._' "Okay, I'm sure I can work something out. I will return to you with payment."

"Thanks, pleasure doing business with you.", Naruto said, turning back to his teammates. "Sweet, I got a new sword!"

The hunter-nin then **shunshined (Body Flicker - ed)**away, disappearing without a trace.

"Whew.", Kakashi said. "Glad that's over."

He then proceeded to pass out, falling over on the ground.

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"Naruto, how'd you know?", Kakashi asked at the dinner table of Tazuna's house, where they had eventually ended up, after Naruto created clones to help drag Kakashi along with them.

"Know what?", Naruto asked.

"The hunter-nin.", Kakashi answered. "How'd you know she was a fake?"

"What do you mean?", Naruto asked.

"Y-You took the sword.", Kakashi said. "You didn't know?"

"No.", Naruto answered honestly. "I just thought the sword would be cool. I didn't know she was a fake."

"Wow.", Kakashi said, stunned. "You are, quite possibly, the luckiest ninja I've ever met."

"Thanks.", Naruto said, beaming.

"I'm not sure if that was a compliment.", Kakashi said. "Either way, I doubt that Zabuza's really dead."

"What do you mean, sensei?", Hinata asked. "Not only did you stab him in the side, but he also received several senbon to the neck, how could he not be dead?"

"That's it.", Kakashi said. "He was hit with several senbon. If you want to kill someone, you put something through their skull. Or at least their heart. Instead that hunter-nin placed them in his neck. I think their goal was to temporarily paralyze him, or put him in a near-death state. Either way, I think he'll be back. I'm not sure when, but with injuries like that, it'll be at least a week or two, and even then I doubt he'll be back to full strength."

"Then we should go track him down.", Naruto said. "If he's weak, we should attack him while he _is_, not wait until he gets better."

"No, we don't know where they are, they could be anywhere.", Kakashi said. "Besides, I'm not at full strength yet either, I overused the sharingan a lot in that fight, it's going to take me a while to be full strength."

"Oh.", Naruto said, dejected.

"But don't worry.", Kakashi said. "In the meantime, we'll take the time to train."

"Yay!", Naruto shouted. "What'll we learn, some awesome new jutsu or something."

"Tomorrow…", Kakashi began, building up a dramatic pause. "You will learn to climb trees."

"What!", Naruto and Sasuke yelled. "But we already know how to do that."

"Ah.", Kakashi said. "But… can you do it without your hands?"

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

"So, here we are.", Kakashi said, standing in a forest. "Ready to learn how to climb trees?"

"Yeah.", all three team members said.

"Well, watch." Having said that, Kakashi walked over to a tree and proceeded to walk _straight up_ the trunk.

"Now you three get to try.", he said from a branch high up in the tree. He threw them all kunai, with which he told them to mark the trunk each time they reached as far up as they could go. "Good luck."

Naruto, Hinata and Sasuke all picked various trees to climb, and all started trying to walk up. Sasuke made it part of the way up the tree, before eventually losing his 'grip' and falling. Hinata made it most of the way up before proceeding to do the same thing.

Naruto however, made it all the way up the tree, walked up and down the trunk, and then turned back to Kakashi. "Well, was that supposed to be hard."

Kakashi just sputtered, nearly falling out of the tree. "B-bu-but you… you were going to be the best one out of all of you."

"Yeah, obviously.", Naruto replied tauntingly.

"There's no way you would make it up the tree in one go.", Kakashi said, incredulous.

"Well, I seem to have, don't I?", Naruto said.

'_How?_', Sasuke thought. '_There's no way the dobe would make it up that tree and I wouldn't._'

'_I knew Naruto-kun would be able to do it._', Hinata thought. '_He always seems to get through things somehow._'

"How?", Kakashi asked, voicing all three of their thoughts.

"Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it?", Naruto taunted. "Tell you what, when Sasuke gets up here and can knock me off of this tree… I might tell you."

Sasuke growled at Naruto, before walking over to the tree he was in and attempting to walk up it.

Naruto, not worried overly about Sasuke, simply walked over to a branch and sat down, opting to take a rest. "Hey duck-butt, how long's it going to take?", he taunted Sasuke.

"Shut it, dobe!", Sasuke yelled back, before falling off the tree in a small explosion of bark.

"Don't use too much chakra, Sasuke.", Naruto said, grinning.

'_Where in the world did he learn this?_', Kakashi wondered.

Naruto eventually fell asleep on the branch waiting for Sasuke to get to him. It took Sasuke most of the day to make it all the way up the tree, but when he got up, he was extremely pissed.

"Hey dobe, wakey-wakey.", he whispered, pushing Naruto off the branch.

Naruto yelled as he fell from the tree, managing to hit several branches he could've sworn weren't there before. "What was that for!", he yelled to Sasuke.

"Well, you said for me to knock you out of the tree.", Sasuke replied. "Not my fault you weren't prepared."

Naruto growled at him from the ground, walking back up the tree to face Sasuke.

"Now now, Naruto.", Kakashi said, trying to defuse the situation.

"What!", Naruto yelled. "He could've killed me!"

"Oh, you would've been fine.", Kakashi said. "Which you are."

"That doesn't change anything!", Naruto said.

"More to the point…", Kakshi said. "I believe Sasuke knocked you out of the tree…"

Naruto realized that Sasuke had, in fact, knocked him out of the tree. "Damn!", he swore, looking at the rather smug looking Uchiha. "Get over here!", he yelled, running after Sasuke.

"Naruto, don't push Sasuke off the tree.", Kakashi said.

"What!", Naruto yelled. "Oh, so when you _want_ someone pushed off the tree…"

"Anyways, he _did_ knock you off.", Kakashi said. "So would you mind telling us all how you managed it so quickly?"

"Oh, yeah.", Naruto said. "I was actually going to tell you at the end of the day anyway."

Naruto took off his shirt, causing much staring by Hinata, before he started looking at her strangely. "This is why." He channeled some chakra to his torso, causing a massive seal array to become visible on his chest.

"That's amazing…", Kakashi said, shocked. "You did all this to _yourself_."

"Well, not all of it…", Naruto said, referring to the jinchuuriki seal which he had _definitely_ not done himself.

"What does it do?", Kakashi asked.

"A lot, actually.", Naruto said. He pointed to one part of the seal, directly above the seal restraining the kyuubi. "This part is the most important bit though. It limits chakra."

"Why would you want to _limit_ your chakra.", Sasuke asked.

"Because I have too much of it.", Naruto answered. "Even with this, I have more than most low jonin."

'_What!_', Sasuke thought, shocked at Naruto's completely serious declaration.

"It also filters it some, which helps a lot.", he told Kakashi. "It still isn't good enough to fully limit… _it_. But it's getting there."

"That's amazing.", Kakashi said.

"Yeah…", Hinata said, drooling. But it wasn't clear if she was talking about the seal, or just completely out of it staring at Naruto.

"Hinata, stop thinking perverted things about Naruto.", Kakashi said, noticing the girl's rapt stare. "Hinata!"

"Hai, sensei!", she yelled, snapping to attention.

"It could be worse, I guess.", Kakashi said, mostly to himself. "I heard the Haruno girl was also useless, in addition to a stalking fangirl."

"Hey!", Hinata yelled. "I'm nothing like Sakura!"

"Yeah, sure.", Kakashi said.

"Ano…", Naruto said. "What's going on?"

"Nothing.", both Kakashi and Hinata said instantly.

"O…K…", Naruto said, backing off.

"But even with this seal, you still shouldn't be able to do that on the first try.", Kakashi said. "That takes perfect chakra control, which you'll _never_ have."

"You're right.", Naruto said. "Actually, it was ero-sennin."

"What?", they all said.

"You mean _Jiraiya_?", Kakashi asked, nearly laughing out loud at the title.

"Jiraiya of the sennin?", Sasuke asked.

"Yeah, that one.", Naruto said. "But honestly, he deserves the title 'ero-sennin' more."

"When did he teach you this?", Kakashi asked.

"The first time he taught me about fuuinjutsu.", Naruto said. "It was one of the first things he made me practice, aside from calligraphy, which was basically just making hundreds and hundreds of explosive tags. Even now, that's still how I practice, which is why I basically have an unlimited supply of explosive tags. I even made some money off them by selling them to Tenten's shop."

"Tenten… you mean Gai's student?", Kakashi asked.

Naruto shivered. "Yeah, that guy…"

"You have my consolations.", Kakashi said. "You've obviously met him."

"Yeah." Naruto shivered again, along with gagging this time. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Yeah, sure.", Kakashi agreed.

"What's so bad about this guy?", Sasuke asked.

"We agreed not to talk about it.", Naruto yelled.

"So, tomorrow, we get to learn the next phrase of this.", Kakashi said. "Unless…"

"Yes?", Naruto asked.

"You've already learned it, haven't you.", Kakashi said.

"Aww… you ruined the fun.", Naruto complained.

"Naruto…", Kakashi said, dejected. "You're taking all the fun out of this job."

~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~

** Chapter over! Relatively short, at least in terms of advancing the story. I thought so, at least. I hope the fight scenes were good, and I didn't put too much detail that people wouldn't understand (because probably not all of you know kendo moves, so I had to use different terminology.)**

** Anyways… Yeah, this took a ridiculous amount of time to get out. I'm sorry. I was writing a chapter for my other story, and my computer crashed. I lost about 5,000 words and a whole lot of inspiration out of an (at the time) almost 10,000 word chapter, which has since been re-written (again, and again, and again.) So… yeah, that's why this was so late, I just wasn't in the writing mood after that, and it's taken me almost two weeks to 're-enter' it. Sorry.**

** Anyway, you probably don't care about that, so Bitshoptyler out!**


	9. Wave Country and Training

**New chapter time! Before that though, I have a few review responses that I must put here. First, I'd like to thank the reviewer 'Rose Tiger'. Without your constant "Keep going"s, I think this story would take even longer to get out. Each review people send reminds me 'You need to work on the story.', so thanks to everybody who has posted multiple reviews.**

** Second, to the anonymous reviewer 'Charles', who complained that this story simply followed an oft-used template, namely, its similarity to canon. I do wish that you had had the courtesy to sign in to an account before reviewing; I could have simply PM'd you, instead of this. Either way, here's my response:**

** While it's true that the story has been very si****milar to canon, there are many minute differences, ones which will rear their ugly heads very soon. In fact, this chapter (or the next) is where the story will significantly deviate, but I can't tell you how, now could I... *rubs hands together and grins* ****If you really want a story that will be **_**significantly**_** different from canon, check out my other (main) story (Shameless Plug Alert) **_**Hanyou no Yoko.**_

** My point with the response to the ****review**** is that even though some people may complain about the similarity**** to canon, others like that it has not deviated significantly... yet. If you look closely, the differences are there, and nearly **_**all**_** of them will be used in the future.**

** Also, if you absolutely **_**hate**_** canon, and want a story that doesn't follow it **_**whatsoeve**__**r**_**, I've actually got something coming up for that. I've got about 10,000 words, but no clean chapter break yet, so... just be patient. Yeah.**

** Disclaimer: Sue me and I'll send the Giant Fox of DOOM**** after you.**

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

The next day, as expected, Kakashi guided team seven to the water. In fact, they picked a spot near the bridge, so he could keep an eye on their progress while also watching over the bridge-builder.

"So what do we do?", Sasuke asked.

"Remember how you used chakra to stick to the trees yesterday?", Kakashi said. "It's nearly the same with water."

He walked out onto the surface of the water, giving the two a 'live' demonstration. "The process is the same, just channel chakra to your feet. The difference lies in the water being liquid. Since the water is constantly shifting, you also have to constantly change how you're channeling chakra." He pointed to the bottom of his feet. "The chakra builds into an unstable layer between the water and the bottom of your feet, pushing them both apart. However, if you use too little chakra, you will sink through the water. Too much, and you won't be able to stay on the water, because it will grow too unstable. Try it for yourself."

Hinata and Sasuke both took of their shoes, attempting to walk onto the surface of the water. After a few seconds of successful walking, Hinata slowly sank through, eventually settling into a standing position on the bottom of the ocean. Sasuke fared better, lasting a full ten seconds before falling over; leaving the surface of the water he stood on looking as if it was boiling.

"Not so easy, is it?", Kakashi said. "Just get back up, you'll get it eventually."

Hinata and Sasuke tried again, yielding the same results as before. After watching them struggle for a while, Naruto intervened.

"Actually, I've got a suggestion.", he said to his drenched teammates. "Try it with both your hands and feet on the water. Gotta crawl before you can walk, right?"

They both tried it, finding it much easier to stay up on the surface with four contact points than two. Even so, when they tried to stand up, both Hinata and Sasuke both sunk through the water, not having applied enough chakra once they took their hands away.

"It takes a little while.", Naruto said.

'_Interesting idea._', Kakashi thought, watching the two struggle on the water. '_I wonder how he found that._'

"I actually found that out by accident.", Naruto said, nearly perfectly answering Kakashi's thoughts. "When I was trying it, I had almost fallen on my face, and I found out that I could use my hands to stay up, and it also helped with stability. You can't really be on your hands and knees trying to fight, but for just learning how to stand up on the water, it works pretty well."

"Hm. Good idea, Naruto.", Kakashi said.

'_What! We're the ones doing all the work!__ Dobe! Acting all smug just because he had someone teach him._', Sasuke thought, glaring at Naruto between splashes.

"Hey, sensei.", Naruto said. "I've got a question."

"Ask away.", Kakashi said, pulling out a little orange book from his waist pouch.

"If you can walk on water, then could you walk on air?"

Kakashi thought about that. "Well, I'm not sure. I don't think anyone's ever tried that before. I guess, in theory, it's possible. You would have to use so much chakra it probably wouldn't be worth it, but... I don't know. I think it would be easier for someone wind-natured, but we don't have many of those in Konoha."

"How do you tell if you're wind-natured?", Naruto asked.

"Well, there are a few tests you can do.", Kakashi said. "The easiest, though, is a special type of paper that shows what affinity you are."

"Oh. So how do I get some?", Naruto asked.

"Well, I don't have any now, but I can test you once we get back to Konoha. I might as well test Sasuke's and Hinata's natures while I do it. I have my suspicions about Hinata already though, and Sasuke is definitely a fire-nature."

"How do you know he's a fire-nature?", Naruto asked.

"He already knows a **Katon (fire release)** jutsu.", Kakashi said. "The **Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)**. It's used as a coming-of-age rite in the Uchiha clan, and all members are expected to learn it by the time they become genin."

"Oh. I didn't know that.", Naruto responded. "So how do I learn something like that?"

"Like I said, I have to test you before I can give you any elemental jutsu to learn.", Kakashi said. He looked back at the two other teammates, who were warily standing up on the water again. "Good job guys, keep going."

Sasuke looked over at Kakashi before he lost concentration and fell forwards onto the water, barely managing to catch himself with his hands. "Thanks, sensei.", he said sarcastically.

"You're welcome Sasuke.", Kakashi said, eye-smiling.

"Naruto, come with me, but leave a clone here.", Kakashi said. To the other two he said "If you need anything, just dispel the clone, Naruto will know. I'm sorry I can't leave one, but I'm still fighting off chakra exhaustion, so I can't make a shadow clone and still be an effective fighter."

Naruto made the requested clone, which sat down to watch the two on the water. "Good.", Kakashi said. "We'll just be on our way now, just dispel the clone if you need us."

Receiving a "Hai!" from both his students training, Kakashi left, guiding Naruto to the bridge where Tazuna was already setting up for the day's work.

"Oh, there you are.", Tazuna said, noticing the two ninja. "I was wondering when you would be here."

"Yup.", Naruto said. "Here we are. So what are we going to do?"

"Actually Naruto.", Kakashi said. "We're not going to do much. Since this is just guard duty, we aren't going to do much more than stand here and watch a bridge get built."

"Oh.", Naruto said, dejected.

"But, if you want, I can train you.", Kakashi said. "Anything you had in mind?"

Naruto thought a minute before answering "Summoning."

"Summoning, eh?", Kakashi said. "Well, what brings up this question?"

"Er…", Naruto stammered. "I… no reason, I was just wondering."

Kakashi stared at Naruto for a minute, obviously showing Naruto he knew he was lying. "You know, you could at least _try,_ Naruto."

Naruto sighed. "I stole the kitsune summoning contract.", he admitted. "When I got the Forbidden Scroll."

"Hm.", Kakashi responded, thinking.

"Plus, the boss summon authorized me to have it, so… isn't it mine, then?"

"What?", Kakashi said, thinking. '_The boss summons… that must be the kyuubi._'

"Naruto, the _kyuubi_ told you to get the scroll.", Kakashi asked. "You really think you can trust it?"

"Yeah, of course.", Naruto answered. It's not like the kyuubi could _possibly_ have any ulterior motives, right?

"Er…" Kakashi was nearly at a loss for words. If the kyuubi truly _was_ the boss summon, then there was no reason that Naruto was not authorized to have the scroll. On the other hand, he had no reason to trust the fox, and Naruto getting the scroll…

"I'm sorry Naruto.", Kakashi said. "I don't think I should be the one to tell you about that. I'll tell you what though, the next time you see Jiraiya, talk to him about it. He _made_ a summoning scroll, he's the expert on things like that."

"Oh.", Naruto said, once more dejected.

"Is there anything _else_ that you want to try to learn?", Kakashi asked the sulking student.

"Um…", Naruto muttered, thinking. "Yeah."

His face lit up, something which Kakashi found nearly disturbing in the way that he seemed to have ideas that couldn't possibly end well. "Can I try using Zabuza's sword?"

Admittedly, Kakashi had worse ideas as to what Naruto would ask for, but this wasn't the safest thing he could teach him either. Eh, being a ninja wasn't safe anyways, who cared?

"Yeah, sure.", Kakashi said. "Do you have it with you?"

"Yeah, of course.", Naruto said, removing a scroll from inside his jacket.

He rolled the obscenely large scroll out on the ground. It was obviously a mass storage scroll, meant to hold a large number of items, and was normally something that people didn't carry around. Kakashi was beginning to wonder how much storage space Naruto _had_ in that jacket.

Inspecting the scroll, Naruto eventually found a spot he was interested in. Leaving a finger on the spot for future reference, he cut his thumb with a kunai, drawing enough blood to smear over a complex-looking seal in the upper corner of the scroll. After Naruto channeled some chakra to the seal, it started glowing red, and absorbed the blood placed on it. Once the seal had absorbed the blood, Naruto then moved back to the storage seal he had kept his finger on, and channeled chakra to _that_ seal as well.

In a small puff of smoke, the **Kubikiribouchou (Decapitating Carving Knife)** appeared on top of the large storage scroll. Picking up the unwieldy weapon, Naruto handed it to his sensei, who inspected the sword.

"Well, like I said before, you _are_ the luckiest ninja alive Naruto.", Kakashi said, experimenting with different holds on the impossibly large sword. Eventually he handed it back to Naruto, instructing him on how to hold and swing the sword effectively.

Naruto gave the sword a few test swings, trying to find the correct balance with the unusually large weapon. Eventually, he found some measure of confidence, not-quite-so-awkwardly swinging the sword around, though it was still obvious he was no master.

"Naruto, I want you to try fighting against a shadow clone of yourself.", Kakashi said. "That way, I can see and point out any defects in your fighting style, and help you with them."

Naruto complied, forming a shadow clone which also wielded the Kubikiribouchou. They both got into a fighting stance, waiting for Kakashi to give the order to fight. Eventually he did, and the two Narutos ran towards each other.

Their fighting could hardly be called kenjutsu, considering the simple way they were slinging their respective swords at each other. Nevertheless, it worked, mostly due to the large mass of the Kubikiribouchou, which, understandably, did not want to change direction very fast. Both Naruto's and the clone's swords clashed together with a bang, stinging their hands with the vibrations sent out by the heavy swords' impact.

Since both Naruto and the clone performed nearly the exact same movements, understandably they got the same result. Namely, the swords in their hands impacted, and one of them went flying. That honour went to the clone, who found that, without a sword, he could not stop the impact of Naruto's blade against his skull. His pain did not last long however, since he was almost immediately dispelled after the blow.

Kakashi watched the clone and his sword disappear in a puff of smoke. "Well Naruto.", he said, gaining said blonde's attention. "That was… pathetic."

Naruto sweat-dropped at his sensei's harsh words about his fighting style, but was forced to concede, realizing that his performance was, indeed, pathetic.

"I'm sorry, but there's no other way to describe it.", Kakashi continued. "Your movements were both clumsy and obvious, and you left yourself open to any counterattack that a faster enemy could have taken advantage of. Furthermore, it's obvious you aren't used to wielding such a heavy weapon, as your corrections of its course were slow and inaccurate. From your grip on the weapon, I can infer that you were guiding the sword wrong. Instead of being able to flow between attacks, you were fighting the _sword_, trying to make it change direction in a way that you can't easily do with such a heavy weapon."

Naruto simply listened to what Kakashi had to say; he _did_ know better than him how to wield a sword, and had experience Naruto was certainly lacking. No matter how much he practiced with a Shinai, this sword was completely different, and behaved differently once Naruto tried to swing it around. What he gained in momentum, he lost in speed and flexibility. There was no way to make sudden movements with such a large weapon. At least, not yet… once he got the hang of it though, he could work on the strength required to toss around a sword weighing nearly as much as he did with impunity.

"Make another clone and try again, but this time, do it _slowly_.", Kakashi said. "Try to get form down before speed, or you're going to end up failing just as miserably this time."

Naruto once again formed a shadow clone for an opponent, this time making slow movements, as if practicing katas. The clone and Naruto performed a slow dance around each other, practicing blocking each other's strikes. This time, since Naruto no longer had to focus on trying to change the direction of the sword so quickly, he was able to see how his style failed with the sword, trying to evade instead of use the flat edge of the sword to block.

Both he and the clone started with simple downward slashes, which Naruto blocked with the back of the sword, sliding the clone's away from his body. Afterwards, Naruto brought the sword upwards to hit the clone in the chest, but the clone backed away, bringing his sword back around to hit Naruto in the back while he was turned. Naruto, in response, brought his sword back around to do the same thing to the clone, their movements ending in both of them backing away from each other once again.

They (slowly) rushed back towards each other, Naruto bringing his sword upwards diagonally, trying connect upwards into its torso. The clone did the opposite, bringing his sword downwards diagonally. Both swordsmen backed away from the sharp edge of their opponent's blade, and the swords passed by each other by centimeters, Naruto trying to gain some distance on the clone, who seemed not to care if he got hit, as long as he hit Naruto. Naruto observed the clone was making (relatively) fast swipes, in contrast to his slower, patterned ones, which he tried to use to his advantage by pushing the clone's sword back towards him once he tried the same attack again. It worked somewhat, with Naruto pushing his sword upwards against the clone trying to bring his sword down. Naruto then quickly changed the direction of his sword towards the clone, dispelling it via a simple cut to the hand.

"Nice job Naruto.", Kakashi said. "But you've still got work to do. Even if you beat the clone there, in a real fight an enemy would have been able to cut your head off with their sword before you could do enough damage to stop them using that technique. The only real thing that can help you with that is practice, and given your nearly infinite supply of clones, you can get plenty of it. Just check back with me once in a while and show me how you're doing."

With that, Kakashi turned to his constant companion, the Icha-Icha series. The best part was that the new book had just come out, and he was eager to find out how it finished. With a perverted giggle, he opened the pages…

Naruto just sweat-dropped at Kakashi's antics, before making another clone to fight again.

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

(Many, many clones later)

Naruto could safely say he had gotten the hang of wielding the Kubikiribouchou. Gaining both his clone's memories and his own helped him tremendously in quickly learning of the deficiencies in his style, and eventually Naruto formed even more clones to fight against each other, in addition to slow speed one-on-one with him and another clone. For hours, the bridge was filled with the sight and sounds of dozens of copies of the hyperactive ninja fighting each other, and the workers tried to avoid the many swords being flung around (in some cases, literally.)

Kakashi, seeing Naruto had gained enough experience in such a short time that the clones' returns were diminishing, took it upon himself to spar with Naruto, leading to the present situation. Naruto had once again found his sword lazily deflected by the jonin wielding a kunai. By now he was getting frustrated. Surely Kakashi couldn't stop it that easily, the sword weighed more than he did!

"Hm. My kunai is getting dull, don't you think so Naruto?", Kakashi taunted, holding the kunai up to his eye for inspection. Naruto wasted no time in once again bringing his sword up against the jonin, but before he could react, he found it was once again expertly pushed away by his sensei.

"Hm. You'll have to be faster than that.", Kakashi said. It got the expected reaction from Naruto, who wildly swung his sword at Kakashi, expecting him to once again deflect it. Instead, Kakashi dropped to the ground, allowing the sword to pass harmlessly above him. The sudden, unexpected weight of the sword continuing on its arc threw Naruto off balance completely, making him nearly stumble into Kakashi, who pushed him back before he could land on him. Naruto let go of the sword, falling on his face.

"Don't ever make such a movement that you can't correct, Naruto.", Kakashi told him, picking up Naruto's dropped sword from the ground. "The way you expected me to do something I didn't, that is what is dangerous in a fight. If you can break an enemy's pattern, especially if you make them think you're going to do something else, then you can truly control how they act, move, everything."

"Ugh. Thanks, sensei.", Naruto said, giving a weak thumbs-up from his position on the ground.

"You're welcome Naruto.", Kakashi said with an eye-smile. "Are you getting back up?"

"Dundthingzo.", Naruto mumbled incoherently, his face pressed into the surface of the bridge.

"Come on Naruto, aren't you supposed to have ridiculous stamina or something?", Kakashi chided.

Naruto did eventually return to a seated position, retrieving his sword from Kakashi.

"Well Naruto, I think the day's about wrapping up.", Kakashi said. It was true, it would soon be dark, and work on the bridge was coming to a close for the day. "I guess we should get back to the other two and see how they're doing."

Kakashi then left the bridge to find his other students, leaving Naruto in the company of the bridge-builder. Silence reigned over the bridge, neither of them finding much to talk about, or alert the other to. Eventually, Tazuna had finished cleaning up, and, as if on cue, Kakashi made an appearance on the side of the bridge, along with Hinata and Sasuke.

All five of them walked back to Tazuna's house together, Hinata and Sasuke too exhausted to start a conversation, Naruto nearly so. So Tazuna took up their slack, attempting to engage the three genin in conversation.

"So, what did you two do?", he asked Hinata and Sasuke. "I only saw the blond kid swinging his sword around all day, did you two do any training like that?"

Neither of them responded.

"O...kay.", Tazuna said, slightly disappointed by the lack of reaction.

The trip was spent in silence from that point on, until Tsunami greeted them from the house. The five of them went inside, the smells of food wafting its way towards them from the kitchen. Inside, the table was already set for all of them, and Tsunami was carrying trays of food out for the undoubtedly hungry guests.

They were, undoubtedly, hungry. After an "Itadakimasu" spat out in barely half a second, team seven was quickly shoveling food into their mouths as quickly as possible. Even the normally composed Hinata, pushed to desperation by her hunger, was shoving food into her mouth as quickly as possible.

"Man, this might not be Ichiraku's, but it's good.", Naruto said between bites.

"Arigatou.", Tsunami replied, happy to see people enjoying her cooking. The same could not, apparently, be said for her son, who seemed to be just pushing some food around his plate. "Inari, could you please eat your food, just look at them, they seem to be enjoying it.", she said to the permanently sulking child.

He mumbled something incoherently, not looking up from his food. "Aw, come on. Cheer up!", Naruto said, reaching over to pat him on the back.

Inari shrank away from his contact, staring at him as if he had just performed a taboo. "What do you want!", he yelled at Naruto. "Why are you acting like this! You may be all cheerful now, but you'll all be dead in a week!"

"Hm? I seem fine now. I don't think we're going to get killed so quickly, ne?", Naruto said, attempting to make some sort of joke, though it was obvious Inari didn't take it like that.

"You're all idiots!", Inari yelled. "What are you doing here, you can't defeat Gato, you'll just end up like everyone else that's gone up against him!"

"Aw, come on.", Naruto said, attempting to cheer him up. "Even if Gato's done some bad things here before, it'll all be over soon, because you've got me here! Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, and most awesome ninja in Konoha!"

"Just shut up.", Inari said. "You haven't seen what this country's been through, how can you know how much we've suffered. You're just playing ninja with your friends, you can't do anything."

His words struck Naruto harshly. There it was again, 'Playing ninja.' The complete disregard for the years of training he went through, the pain he had to go through to get to this point, for _him_…

"You don't know anything.", Naruto muttered under his breath, but Inari didn't hear him. He had already run out of the room, looking as if he would start crying any second.

"What's wrong with him?", Naruto asked Tazuna.

"He… he's had a hard life, everybody here has really.", Tazuna answered. Meanwhile, Tsunami was going upstairs after Inari, trying to comfort the crying boy. "I try to cheer him up, but… Gato's succeeded in crushing almost all the life out of this town, and him too. It's been especially hard for him. He hasn't had a father probably as long as he can remember, but there was a man, who he regarded as a father…"

"What happened to him?", Naruto asked.

"He gave this country hope.", Tazuna spat out bitterly. "For that, he had to be made an example of; Gato brutally killed him. He saved this whole village you know. Can't have people doing good things, it might shake the hold he has on the village, and we all know Gato can't have anybody threatening him.

"I'm… I'm sorry.", Naruto said. "It's just, he's so set in thinking it's useless, he's just lost hope. Gato's not some unbeatable character in the heavens; he's just some piece of trash that thinks he can play god with his own little village. We'll show him"

"Whatever he is, you can obviously see the effect he's having on this place.", Tazuna said. The rest of the meal was spent in silence, the only sound being the occasional 'clink' of utensils on plates, as they solemnly ate their food.

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

"Hey Inari.", Naruto said, sitting down next to the sniffling boy.

Inari was staring out the window of his room, towards the ocean. The calm waters reflecting the moon painted a stark contrast to the turbulent thoughts of the two gazing at the night. In the dim light, Naruto could faintly see Inari wiping tears away from his eyes using the sleeve of his shirt. It was obvious from the dampness of the shirt he had been doing so for a while.

"What do you want?", he asked Naruto.

"I… I want to apologize.", Naruto said. "I'll admit I was mad at you, but even so, you're not bad, you just need to be set back on course."

"I'm fine.", Inari mumbled. "It's just… why are you doing this? You'll just end up like everybody else that's gone up against Gato."

"Why?", Naruto said. "It's simple; because nobody else will. There's no way I _can't_ defeat Gato."

"What do you mean?", Inari asked, looking up at Naruto with tear-filled eyes.

"I hate Gato just as much as you do.", Naruto said. "He deserves to die for what he's done, both to the country, and to you and your family."

Inari sniffled, but did not comment.

"But you're doing it wrong. If you want to improve this place, you have to do it yourself.", Naruto said. "You can't do anything if you just sit around and sulk though; you need to _do_ something."

"What am I supposed to do?", Inari said. "The last person who tried that… it didn't end well for him."

"That's why you've got us here, isn't it?", Naruto said. "Let us take care of the fighting, but we need people that are willing to improve things. If somebody doesn't do anything, even if Gato was killed, the country would be just as bad off as it was before. Probably worse, since there's nobody keeping people in check. You'd just have anarchy."

Inari looked up at Naruto, smiling. It was an exercise he seemed to be performing with less and less regularity in recent times, and Naruto was happy to see his mood improving.

"Don't worry.", Naruto said, turning around to go back downstairs. "It'll be fine. It won't even be a week before Gato will be nothing but a memory."

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

Speak of the devil. In his own hideout, said midget was currently planning what to do against the enemy ninja who had made a laughingstock out of his.

"Demon of the Mist.", Gato mumbled under his breath. "He's useless, he lost against a team of baby ninjas, and on top of that, they took his weapon. What am I paying him for?"

Neither of his guards responded. They knew it often ended better for them if they simply ignored their leader's ramblings, annoying as he may be sometimes.

Gato walked out of his office, heading for the room Zabuza was currently resting in. He was going to give the 'Demon' a piece of his mind.

He barged in suddenly, flanked by his two katana-wielding guards. "What are you doing!", He yelled to Zabuza, who looked at him with mild interest.

"Oh, it's the midget.", Zabuza said. "What do you want?"

"I want to know what you're doing!", Gato yelled. "Why aren't you going after them, it's been almost three days since you got back!"

"Don't worry.", Zabuza said. "In a week, you won't have to worry about them at all."

"You better make sure of it.", Gato said. "If you don't…"

He walked towards the sitting ninja, but before he could even get halfway there, he was interrupted by Zabuza's apprentice. Before he could react, she (he?) had grabbed him by the arm and flung him back into his guards, who were also knocked down by the force of their leader landing on them.

"You will not harm Zabuza-sama.", she told them, her voice as cold as ice. In fact, it was not just Gato's imagination either; the temperature in the room had dropped nearly ten degrees.

"G-get out!", Gato yelled, cradling his arm. He thought it might have been broken, though he couldn't tell past the dislocated shoulder.

He quickly retreated from the room, his arm dangling limply behind him.

"Haku, could you try not to kill our source of money_ just_ yet?", Zabuza said.

"Gomen, Zabuza-sama.", Haku replied, still not moving from her defensive position in front of Zabuza's bed.

"You can sit down now Haku.", Zabuza said. "You know that without a weapon that weakling wouldn't have been able to do anything to me even if I didn't do anything; you shouldn't have reacted so violently."

"Gomen, Zabuza-sama.", Haku said once again, but still did not move from her position.

Zabuza sighed, but simply went back to sleep, instead of arguing with Haku.

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

(With Gato)

Gato had had one of his assistants mend his arm, and was currently once again behind his desk, this time with his right arm in a sling.

"Damn him.", he muttered, referring to the swordsman located only a few doors down the hall. "What am I supposed to do now?"

There was nothing to do now but wait. In a week, when Zabuza was back to operating strength, he would strike again, and this time, both the bridge-builder _and _the ninja would be made an example of. He would not be defeated again…

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

**Chapter done. Actually, this **_**and**_** chapter ten started out as a single chapter in my plans, but I thought it was getting too long (at over 10,000 words), so I decided here would be a good stopping point. Will I upload both at once? We'll see on Friday, when I upload. If there's a next button, there's a good chance I uploaded both. If not, I guarantee it'll be out on Saturday.**

** Goodbye, and Bitshoptyler out!**


	10. Fight! Team Seven vs Zabuza and Haku

**Next chapter! This is it! The chapter that breaks 40,000 words on this story in... ****What****? Two months? Three? I'm proud of it, even if some of the earlier chapters could've gone better.**

** I didn't upload this **_**quite**_** the same time as chapter nine, but I hope it's close enough for you.**

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

Hinata followed Tsunami through the town. They had got a lot done in the past week, she thought. Not only had she and Sasuke learned both the tree-climbing _and_ water-walking exercises, but they had gotten good enough at them to start sparring on the water after two days of training.

Right now though, she and Tsunami were walking through the village in order to buy some food to cook for dinner. She couldn't wait, as she, and the rest of her team, had built up quite an appetite training that day. The only problem with that was the lack of food. The stores that carried the vegetables they needed were either out, or the remaining stock was so horrible-looking that Hinata didn't think it was edible.

"It's because our country just can't get enough food.", Tsunami explained. "Normally, we import most goods from the mainlands, because we just can't grow that much here. The reason we can't just goes back to that damnable bastard Gato again. He's more interested in shipping 'high-value' items through here, so we have to starve, but meanwhile drugs and weapons flow through here like water. Even the food we do get is rationed, so at the beginning of the week, people buy all the stock of produce they can get. That leaves us here, most of the way through the week with nothing to eat."

"So nowhere has food?", Hinata asked. To her, that was shocking. Growing up in a clan that basically had servants running all over the place, she was used to food just... being there. Even when she cooked it herself, an activity she performed regularly, there was plenty of food waiting for her in either the pantry or one of the many refrigerators in the industrial-sized kitchen. Feeding a clan of nearly 300 people regularly was something requiring more than the average family's kitchen.

"Yeah.", Tsunami answered. "It's pathetic really. Things like this are the reason we need to get the bridge built, to get this country out of Gato's control."

"Yeah, I can see why.", Hinata said, looking around at the depressing sight of the ravaged village. "Is there _nowhere_ we can find food?"

"Actually, I know just the place, it's just a little further.", Tsunami said, walking into a store. It seemed to have almost every kind of product imaginable stored on its shelves, even if supplies were low recently. Not only did it have food out front (though of the same quality as everywhere else), it also had several types of canned goods on the shelves.

"Hey Hiro.", Tsunami greeted. Behind the counter, a women about 50 years old greeted Hinata the Tsunami.

"What can I get you?", she asked the two.

"I need some vegetables for dinner tonight.", Tsunami answered. "We've had some guests staying with us, so our supplies of food are getting used up faster than normal."

"Hm...", the lady mumbled, striking a thinking pose. "Well, I think I can help you. Here, come with me.", she finally said.

Hinata and Tsunami followed her into a cellar filled with fresh produce of every kind. "What do you want?", she asked.

"Not too much, just some potatoes, carrots and celery.", Tsunami said. "Just enough to last a few days. Also, if you've got any milk, that would be great."

Hiro removed said produce from the shelves, handing the vegetables to Hinata and Tsunami. She then ascended the stairs back into the normal section of her store, placing a carpet over the loose board the covered the trapdoor.

'_That's awesome!_', Hinata thought, watching the old lady. If she didn't know where it was, there was no way she would have been able to find the door. Even though she _did_ know where it was, she wasn't sure she could open it. '_What a neat store!_'

Hiro also led them to another section of the store, this time in the back, where a large walk-in refrigerator resided. She entered, quickly returning with a container of milk, which she gave to Hinata.

"Okay, let me just check the prices on that.", she said. She looked at a page filled with scrawly writing, and quickly entered the prices into a cash register. "Okay, that'll be... 1264 Ryo."

"What!", Hinata said, gasping. "Are you sure you aren't off, just a little?"

"No, she's right.", Tsunami said, giving Hiro the required amount of money. "Stuff like this doesn't come cheap."

"No, I guess not.", Hinata said. Still, with 1300 Ryo, in Konoha she could easily get ten times the amount they had gotten from Hiro.

"Why would you pay that much for vegetables?", Hinata asked. "Don't you have some meals that you could've made that were... less costly? I know Naruto likes ramen, you could have made that."

"Actually, that's what I was going to make.", Tsunami said. "I've kept hearing him talk about how amazing the ramen was at that Ichiraku place, I just had to have him try my special recipe."

"Potatoes? For ramen?", Hinata said.

"Well, I need something for tomorrow.", Tsunami answered.

They had not moved far from the store they had just exited when Hinata saw two people enter. They were obviously thugs, and if Hinata had to guess, she would say Gato hired them, given the fact one of them had a sword, and both of them _looked_ intimidating.

Hinata paused to try to hear what was going on behind her. Inside, the thugs seemed to be demanding money from Hiro, who calmly told them "Fuck off. Gato gets his money every time I get a shipment. You just want money for your booze."

One of the burly-looking men seemed to take offense to the obviously-true statement. "Hey listen here old lady, you pay up, or something might just happen to your little store."

"Oh, now you're threatening me?", she said, playing the 'sweet old lady' until the bitter end. "Now why would you boys want to hurt me? I'm just a shop owner?"

"You know how this works lady.", the man with the sword said. "Just pay up, and nobody gets hurt."

"Oh?", Hiro asked. "You _really_ don't want to mess with me boy."

"Oh yeah?", he said, drawing his sword.

Before he could even get his sword out of its sheath, he fell forward into the counter, courtesy of a palm strike to the base of the neck from Hinata. The other man with him looked shocked at his partner's being knocked out, but soon regained his composure enough to rush at Hinata, drawing a large hammer as a weapon.

'_Wow, a _hammer_?_', Hinata thought, looking at the man clumsily swinging the weapon. Immediately after ducking underneath the hammer, Hinata struck the man in the chest, knocking the wind out of him, and bringing him to his knees. "Pathetic.", she said, striking the man in the throat, leaving him on the floor in the fetal position, gasping for the precious air which he was denied.

"Are you okay?", she asked Hiro.

"Oh, I'm fine.", she replied.

"Hinata!", Tsunami yelled, having rushed back into the building after she saw Hinata turn around. "What happened?"

"Oh, this nice young lady was just defending me from these poor thugs.", Hiro said. "Not that I really needed it."

"Hm?", Hinata asked, confused.

Tsunami just laughed. "You thought those two would stop her? She isn't known as the 'Backbone of Wave' just for supplying things."

Hiro smiled at Hinata, pulling up her sleeve to reveal a spring-loaded dagger strapped to the top of her arm. "He got any closer, this little baby would be sticking out the back of his head."

Hinata and Tsunami once again left the store, Hinata shocked considerably by the seemingly innocent, if over-charging, old lady in the store being revealed to be one of the most dangerous people in Wave.

"Who _is_ she?", Hinata asked.

"Hiro.", Tsunami simply replied. "Gato may have this country in a stranglehold, but she almost single-handedly runs the majority of the black market in this country. Anything you need, she can get you. It's rumoured that she has places just like that store back there in other countries too, but not that much is known about her. She doesn't deal in the 'high-value' items Gato does though, namely drugs and weapons; she does have _some_ morals."

'_Wow, that's amazing._', Hinata thought. "Why Wave though?", she asked.

"I guess the same reason Gato is in Wave.", Tsunami said. "It's a small, out-of-the-way country, but it's right on every major water-based shipping route out there, and just about everything either moves through here, or it comes pretty close."

"Oh, so that's why Gato has his base of operations here.", Hinata said. "I guess that makes sense."

"Yeah, convenient little country to own, isn't it?", Tsunami said bitterly.

Eventually Hinata and Tsunami reached Tazuna's house once again, though both the bridge-builder and the rest of team seven were out either training, or... building bridges. This left Hinata and Tsunami ample time to start preparing the meal, which Hinata was sure Naruto would enjoy.

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

Naruto had just finished sparring with Sasuke again. On the water. With 200 pounds in weights strapped to both of their bodies. While Kakashi threw kunai at them between flipping the pages of his small orange book. Lazy bastard.

Both Naruto and Sasuke were drenched in both sweat and water, but neither was willing to give up and admit defeat, so they simply kept going. At this point, it would become a contest of who could outlast the other at standing up on the water, forget fighting. Naruto was sure he could outlast Sasuke, there was no way the stuck-up Uchiha would defeat him, if he could just keep it up a little longer…

Both of them ran at each other over the surface of the water, trying for simple punches, believing the other to be too tired to continue, and they were right. Right on cue, both of them punched each other as hard as they could, pushing them apart, where they proceeded to... fall through the water, completely exhausted.

"Naruto, Sasuke, come back up.", Kakashi said to the two. They weren't even _trying_ to swim; it looked like they had knocked each other out with that last blow. "Aww, don't make me come after you two.", Kakashi complained, but there was still no response.

Kakashi dove into the water, inwardly worried about his two students. They had sunk like stones to the bottom of the water, and were lying on the ground, held down by the ridiculous amount of weights he had placed on their bodies.

Kakashi grabbed them both by the back of their collars and drug them through the water, eventually laying the two unconscious genin near the shore. Thankfully, they were still breathing, as he didn't want having to perform CPR on them interrupt his much-needed reading time. Like I said before, lazy bastard.

So Kakashi was sitting near the water, next to his students, keeping half an eye on the bridge where Tazuna was located, and the other half on his ever-present orange book. He stayed like that until Tazuna eventually wrapped up on the bridge for the day and started walking towards him.

"Hey Tazuna.", Kakashi said, hardly looking up from his book. "We going back?"

"Yeah.", Tazuna responded. "That blond guy's clone things are sure helpful. Even if they didn't know how to do much before, they're actually getting the hang of it pretty well."

"That's nice to know.", Kakashi said. "Wait, didn't his cones dispel when he lost consciousness?"

"Um... I don't know, when did he do that?", Tazuna asked. "I guess they might have, but the clones were dispelling once they were done with their jobs, not so much all at once."

'_I guess we'll never know._', Kakashi thought. '_Still, if a clone still exists after you've lost consciousness, that's not normal for a Bunshin._'

"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as the bridge is coming along nicely.", Kakashi said. "Which it is, I assume?"

"Yeah, especially with the little brat's help.", Tazuna said. "It should be done in about a week and a half, maybe two weeks from now."

"That's good.", Kakashi said. He picked up Naruto and Sasuke, and, slinging them over his shoulders, began to walk back to Tazuna's house.

As soon as they entered the house, Naruto regained consciousness and started sniffing the air.

"What is it boy?", Kakashi joked. "Smell something you like?"

"Ramen!", Naruto yelled, jumping off Kakashi and running into the kitchen.

A loud "Oof!", could be heard when Naruto instead ran into Hinata, who was walking out of the room with a tray. Luckily, she managed to save the food, but Naruto nearly had of her precious cargo spilled all over his hair.

"Gomen, Naruto-kun.", Hinata said, hardly stopping in her travels to the dining room, where there were already dishes set out.

"No, I'm sorry Hinata-chan.", Naruto responded, following Hinata to the large table, eagerly waiting to try the ramen she had helped Tsunami make.

Kakashi, Sasuke (who had regained consciousness sometime after Naruto), Tazuna, and Tsunami soon joined them. They all sat down and quickly began eating noodles from the bowls in front of them. In less than a minute, Naruto was done with his bowl and asked for a refill, which was given to him. This pattern continued for nearly ten bowls, while only Sasuke had gotten a refill aside from him.

'_Where does it all go?_', thought everyone at the table not acquainted with Naruto's ramen eating abilities. Not that the others weren't wondering too, they just knew not to question it by now.

"This stuff's really good Hinata-chan!", Naruto said. Cue much blushing from said girl.

"Thanks.", Naruto yelled. "I'm going to go out and train some more, okay?"

Before anyone could stop him, he ran out the door of the house, off to do whatever he was doing.

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

'_This is so awesome, I'm definitely going to get this now, I can tell it's not much longer!_', Naruto thought, trying to find a clearing where he could practice the jutsu Kakashi had given him.

It had taken a few days, in which Kakashi had trained Naruto in the use of the Kubikiribouchou (Decapitating Carving Knife). Eventually though, Naruto had managed to get Kakashi to give him a new technique to learn. The **Chakra Shinshutsu no Jutsu (Chakra Infiltration Technique)**, an ability that allowed him to push his own chakra into someone else. The idea came from Naruto, he had seen it done somewhere, though he couldn't remember where, and Kakashi came up with the technique and a name. The goal of the technique was to be able to inject your own chakra into someone else, throwing off their ability to perform jutsu and channel chakra. In theory, the technique could be used to permanently damage someone's ability to use chakra by burning out their chakra coils, though it would take a large amount of chakra. Or a bijuu's chakra, which was why Naruto wanted to learn how to perform the technique with the kyuubi's chakra, though Kakashi wouldn't let him experiment with that.

Before, Naruto had tried to perform the technique by creating clones which he would try to push chakra into. Since the clones were formed with chakra though, it was much harder than a regular human body would be to push your own chakra into them. The clones also couldn't take very much chakra before they would dispel, since they were dependent on a steady flow of the stuff to keep corporeal forms. This led to Naruto only being able to use the clones so much; he just couldn't use clones to learn this technique fast. He had to wonder if Kakashi did that on purpose so he wouldn't bother him for a while.

So Naruto tried practicing his technique on something else. Namely, a tree. Unfortunately, trees were _much_ less permeable than either people or clones, so Naruto was struggling to do anything. He could feel a thin layer of chakra between his hands and the tree, similar to the tree-walking exercise had yielded, and he was trying to avoid making the tree blow up in front of him, which would happen if you tried to push too much chakra into them. It was slow going, made worse by the fact that he could hardly move, and a beat of sweat on his forehead was starting to make his nose itch…

"Hakushon!" Naruto violently sneezed, losing concentration only for a split second, but that was all required for the chakra he had pushed into the tree to violently expel itself. Half the diameter of the tree was blow out at him, and only the fact he had lowered his face when sneezing saved his face and eyes from the many splinters flying at him.

"Ugh, why do they keep doing that!", Naruto yelled. Everything seemed to explode if you tried to force chakra into it. Only the fact that clones were largely incorporeal saved Naruto from many potential bloody explosions then, but there was no such limit on solid wood, as he was finding out.

'_Guess I'll just keep trying._', Naruto thought. '_Eventually I'll get the hang of manipulating chakra inside something else. I know it can be dome, 'ttebayo!_'

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

"Zabuza-sama, if you do that, you may injure yourself even more, and you will cause yourself a lot of pain!", Haku said, tending to her master, who was currently sitting on a couch allowing Haku to inspect his arm.

"I don't care!", Zabuza yelled. "We're going to take care of them tomorrow, hell or high water. Just make sure I'm ready for a fight!"

"Very well Zabuza-sama.", Haku said with a sigh. "But will you at least allow me to give you some area painkiller and muscle relaxant. It will help you avoid doing greater damage to that arm."

"Very well Haku, just make sure I'm ready by tomorrow."

"Hai Zabuza-sama.", Haku responded, walking out of the room. She needed more herbs if she was to be able to give Zabuza the required medicines, and she was running low anyways, so she figured now would be as good a time as any to get some.

She had been picking various herbs in the forest for nearly an hour before she noticed something interesting. '_That's curious._', she thought, looking at the deep wound in the tree. As she looked around, she realized that many of the trees in the clearing had similar wounds, and some of the thinner ones had even been blown out enough for the tree to have fallen over.

She then saw what she assumed to be the cause of the deforestation. A young boy, with bright blond hair and six strange whisker-like clan markings on his face, was leaned against one of the destroyed trees, and he seemed to be sleeping.

A look of recognition dawned on her face as she realized who it was. '_That's one of the ninja that fought against Zabuza-sama!_', she thought, looking at the sleeping boy. '_It-It's the one who…_

(Flashback)

_ Near where team seven was, a masked ninja dropped from a tree. "Thank you for defeating Zabuza for me, I would not have been able to do so on my own.", he (She? It?) said, walking to Zabuza's body. "I will be taking this back to Kirigakure.", they said, picking Zabuza's body up._

_ "A hunter-nin of Kirigakure.", Kakashi said to his team, looking at the masked ninja. "They destroy the bodies of nukenin, to make sure no enemies can derive secrets from them."_

_ "Could you please hand me his sword?", the hunter-nin asked Naruto. "I need to return it to Kirigakure, and as part of the Seven Swordsmen's swords, it must be returned to its proper place."_

_ "Why?", Naruto asked tauntingly. "If Kirigakure needs it, they better pay. I helped defeat him, it's my sword for now. You can have it back for oh… 50 million."_

_ "What!", the hunter-nin yelled, incredulous, before regaining composure. '_I can't fight all of them at once, especially whilst defending Zabuza-sama._' "Okay, I'm sure I can work something out. I will return to you with payment."_

_ "Thanks, pleasure doing business with you.", Naruto said, turning back to his teammates. "Sweet, I got a new sword!"_

(End Flashback)

'_If that's him, where's the Kubikiribouchou now?_', she wondered. '_It must be back with the others that were with him._'

She looked at the peacefully sleeping boy. '_This boy may get in our way in the future._', she thought. '_I should kill him now._'

But as much as her rational mind told her to, she disliked killing in general, and killing someone while they were _asleep_ was downright barbaric. Even so, she could not let him hinder Zabuza's plans.

"I'm sorry.", she whispered to the sleeping ninja, moving forwards to hold him still while she cut his throat.

Suddenly, the boy seemed to wake up some. "Hmm? What's that smell Hinata, are you making ramen again?", he muttered.

'_Oh no! He smelled the herbs!_', she thought. Haku started moving towards him again when he suddenly opened his eyes. He rubbed at them with his hands, then looked at the girl in front of him.

Haku had quickly put her kunai away when she saw Naruto start waking up. When Naruto fully opened his eyes, she simply appeared to be a young girl watching him with curiosity in her eyes. "Oh, who are you?", he asked her.

"H-Haku.", she said, stammering slightly. If this boy tried to attack her, she didn't know how she would fare in a fight. She had seen him attack Zabuza, and while he didn't use direct strength against him, she had no illusions about her odds in a fight against a ninja specializing in direct attacks. She was meant for espionage and silently killing people. If worst came to worst though, she thought she could either evade him and attack from a distance with senbon needles, or surround him in an ice dome, though it would use a lot of chakra.

"You know, you shouldn't sneak up on a ninja when they're sleeping.", Naruto said. "I tried that on Kakashi-sensei once, and I got thrown into a wall for my trouble. And he wasn't even awake then."

'_Good._', Haku thought. It was clear he didn't register her as a threat, given his jovial attitude with her. "What are you doing here?", she asked him.

"Oh, I was training last night, and I guess I just fell asleep here.", he answered.

"Oh.", Haku said. "Why are you training?"

"To become stronger.", Naruto answered. "I'm going to be the strongest ninja in Konoha, the Hokage!"

"But that's not the _reason_ you're training, is it?", Haku said.

"What?", Naruto asked, confused.

"You must have a _reason_ to want to get stronger.", Haku said. "Nobody wants to get stronger just to be stronger, there's always a reason. I train so I can protect the people precious to me; why do you train?"

Naruto thought about what she said. Precious people… Iruka, Hinata, Kakashi, the Hokage, the Ichirakus, even Sasuke to some point. They were all precious to him… a smile graced his face. "I definitely have a few precious people…"

"That is good for you.", Haku said. "Don't let anything happen to them." What bitter irony, that she was telling him this and would be forced to fight him in less than a day.

"So… are you a ninja?", Naruto asked.

Haku responded with a "No.", but there was a split-second's hesitation. Unfortunately for Naruto, he didn't notice it.

"Well, okay.", he said.

"Speaking of precious people… do you know what time it is?", Naruto asked her.

Haku looked towards the sun, which was hardly risen over the horizon. "I'd say about six, six-thirty.", she answered him.

"Okay, I guess need to meet up with the rest of them in time for breakfast then.", Naruto said. "Well. Bye Haku."

With that, Naruto walked back towards his house, leaving a slightly confused Haku in his wake.

'_O…kay._'

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

"Hey everybody, Naruto's back!", Naruto yelled as he walked into Tazuna's house.

"Keep it down, brat!", Tazuna yelled from upstairs. "Some people are sleeping!"

"OKAY!", Naruto yelled back even louder.

"Damn brat.", he heard Tazuna mutter as he walked down the stairs.

In the kitchen, Tsunami had already prepared breakfast for everybody, and was bringing pans full of eggs and other sorts of meats to the table. Sasuke, Hinata, and Kakashi quickly joined them in eating. All of them were anxious, as today was the day Kakashi thought Zabuza would target the bridge. They all hoped it wasn't true, but either way, they had to defend Tazuna.

"So… today, is it?", Tazuna said. "Well, let's hope we can deal with him without too much mess."

"Don't worry.", Kakashi said, giving an eye-smile. "We'll be sure to protect you. Besides, Zabuza lost last time, and this time he doesn't even have his main weapon with him. Don't worry about anything."

Tazuna didn't seem too reassured, but didn't say anything else about the subject.

"So Naruto, did you get that jutsu down?", Kakashi asked.

"What jutsu?", Sasuke asked. '_How come he gets new jutsu to learn? __Hinata and I __finished __the water-walking exercise three _days_ ago!_'

"**Chakra Shinshutsu no Jutsu (Chakra Infiltration Technique)**.", Naruto answered. "Basically, it's a fancy way to say you push your own chakra into someone else's body."

"What's the point of that?", Sasuke scoffed. "It's called genjutsu."

Naruto looked at him, his mouth agape. "I guess it is, isn't it?", he asked Kakashi.

"No, not really.", Kakashi said. "Genjutsu uses your chakra to affect an opponent's _senses_. This technique lets you prevent them from using jutsu at all."

"How?", Sasuke asked.

"People may be able to cast jutsu even under the influence of a genjutsu, but if you are tainting their chakra with your own, it messes up the way it flows in their body, and it gets a lot harder to use it for anything."

"Why didn't you tell _me_ about this jutsu?", Sasuke said. "If _he_ can get it down, I could too."

'_There it __is __again__._', Kakashi thought. '_The old Uchiha '__holier__-than-thou' attitude returns with a vengeance. And Sasuke was doing so well for a while there._'

"Actually, that isn't right.", Kakashi said. "Naruto has a ridiculous chakra capacity, and the technique wastes most of the chakra you put into it. If you tried it, you'd probably be able to _do_ it, maybe even do it a few times. But the loss of your own chakra wouldn't be a very fun thing to experience."

Sasuke gave his standard monosyllabic response (Hn.) and started sulking.

"Don't worry though Sasuke.", Kakashi said. "I _do_ have something I wanted to teach you later, maybe I'll do it later this week."

"Really!", Sasuke said, acting a lot like a certain blond-haired boy sitting near him.

"Yep.", Kakashi said. "It's actually an elemental jutsu, since I think you're ready, and I actually _know_ what your element is." Kakashi added the last part to quiet any complaints from Naruto about 'unfairness'.

Eventually everybody finished eating, and Team Seven and Tazuna started walking towards the bridge.

It was obvious something was up, given the extremely thick cloud of mist that covered the bridge. Nobody could see anything, so Kakashi asked Hinata to activate her byakugan. Unfortunately, she could not see anybody else on the bridge besides themselves, so it wasn't much help.

Suddenly, all of them heard the ominous voice they recognized as Momochi Zabuza calling out to them from somewhere in the mist. "So, we meet again Hatake.", he said. "I'll enjoy spilling your blood all over this bridge."

"Oh, so you're not going to get your apprentice to grab your body and run again, are you?:, Kakashi taunted.

Team Seven gathered in a circle around Tazuna, warily waiting for any signs of an attack from within the mist. Suddenly Hinata gasped, and the other two saw why seconds later as the fake hunter-nin from the last battle appeared out of the mist. He ran towards them, but Sasuke was quick enough to block her attempt at striking Tazuna with a kunai. They tried to overpower each other, but it was quickly becoming obvious Sasuke was stronger than the fake hunter-nin. He backed away from Sasuke, throwing some senbon at the group to keep them from chasing him. While the group was busy dodging (and pushing Tazuna away from) the senbon, the hunter-nin wasted no time in once again fading back into the mist.

"What are we going to do?", Hinata said.

"We can't do anything if all three of us are trying to stay with Tazuna." Naruto said to the other two. "I'll go after the hunter-nin, Sasuke, Hinata; stay with Tazuna."

With that, Naruto ran into the mist in search of the hunter-nin. The other two members of Team Seven heard a cry of "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!", but other than that, didn't see or hear anything of Naruto.

(Meanwhile, With Naruto)

Naruto was simply standing in one spot, waiting for the hunter-nin to either come to him or be found by one of his many clones on the bridge. He winced. One of them had just met a fairly nasty end (for a clone) when they got in Zabuza's way. Still no sign of the counterfeit hunter-nin though.

There it was, the telltale whistle of something flying through the air towards his head. He immediately used **Kawarimi (Body Replacement)** to escape the path of the flying senbon, which embedded themselves in a clone's body. The clone dispersed into smoke, and before the smoke could even disperse, Naruto was giving chase to the hunter-nin.

He could see the fake hunter-nin just ahead, but they were an extremely fast runner, and remained just out of his reach. Finally they turned around, just as they ended a sequence of hand seals Naruto didn't recognize. "**Hijutsu: Makyou Hyoushou (Secret Art: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals)**.", the hunter-nin shouted.

Immediately, a dome of ice mirrors formed around Naruto, each with an image of the hunter-nin inside of them. Suddenly, Naruto gasped. He tried to run out of the dome, but was pushed back by some force.

"Sasuke!", he yelled. "If you can hear me, go back to Tazuna's house, you're needed to protect Inari and Tsunami!"

(With Sasuke)

Sasuke had heard Naruto yell. He told Hinata to keep watch over Tazuna, and ran towards Tazuna's house as fast as he could. When he got there a minute later, he saw Inari trying to fight off two thugs.

"Kid's got some fight in him.", one of them said, laughing as he kicked Inari back into the house. "Come on, let's get the girl."

Before either of them could get anybody, the one on left got covered in blood. He looked to his partner. At least, where his partner _used_ to be. Instead, his head was nearly completely severed from his body, leaving the corpse a grizzly sight on the ground.

"Who's there?", he stammered, drawing his sword. "Get out here!"

Before he could react, there was a kunai stuck in his throat. He barely got out a gargling mess of syllables before dying.

"I am.", Sasuke answered the corpse.

"Are you two okay?", Sasuke asked the two inside the house. Both of them seemed to be in shock, both at the thugs showing up, and the violent way in which they were killed. They had just watched a person they had spent the last week with brutally kill two people, and he didn't even seem _affected_. Tsunami unconsciously shriveled into a ball, grabbing Inari and holding him next to her.

"Okay, you're welcome.", Sasuke said, cleaning the kunai off o some grass before putting it back in its holster. "Get up, we need to try to move you two to a more defensible position, so I'm going to take you to the town."

Tsunami, still in mild shock, took his blood-covered hand, allowing him to help her stand up. Inari simply followed the two, a glazed look in his eyes.

(With Hinata)

Naruto was getting beaten horribly inside the dome of mirrors. As the fog cleared, Hinata could see that more clearly. He was losing blood through the many wounds all over his body, and he looked like he was starting to lose motor control.

Hinata had to restrain herself from trying to run over to where Naruto was, but he had given her orders to make sure Tazuna wasn't attacked. She anxiously watched, biting her lip in anticipation.

(With Naruto)

Naruto was losing badly, that much was obvious. He may be plenty fast, and he was certainly stronger than the fake hunter-nin, but she greatly outclassed him in speed, and she stayed out of range of his attacks. She was slowly wearing him down, attacking with senbon needles which would gradually make it harder and harder to move his limbs, and he couldn't do anything against her. He had tried breaking the mirrors, but his strongest punch hardly made a dent, and even then it would simply reform. He was running out of energy now, he couldn't take much more…

'_He's nearly down._', Haku thought, watching Naruto's struggle to stay standing. '_I should go for a kill now._'

She exited her mirror, walking to a position directly in front of Naruto. She slowly drew a kunai, steeling her nerves for what she had to do.

"No!", a feminine voice yelled out. She turned towards it to see a girl Naruto's age running towards her. She didn't even think. Reacting on instinct, she drew a senbon and ran it through the girl's neck. The girl started sputtering and gasping as blood drained into her lungs. "N-Naruto…", she whispered, falling to the ground. She lay still.

"No.", Naruto gasped, staring at Hinata's immobile body. "No. Hinata-chan! No!"

He stood back up, greatly shocking Haku, who turned back to the bloody, needle-pierced genin. She was once again shocked as she looked into his eyes. Instead of the deep, bright blue they were previously, they had turned blood-red, and now had thin slits in them. They were inhuman eyes; the eyes of a demon.

"No!", Naruto yelled. Haku quickly retreated as fast as she could into one of her mirrors, but immediately after she entered it, Naruto shattered it with an insanely strong punch. She kept retreating into a different mirror, and each time, Naruto kept shattering them. Eventually, she was left with only one mirror, and when Naruto shattered it with a flying kick, she was flung backwards outside of what was left of the dome.

Naruto immediately gave chase, attacking her with a barrage of strong punches while they were still in the air. She didn't even touch the ground as she was propelled higher and higher into the air by the many kicks and punches from the blond maelstrom.

Eventually, she realized Naruto was no longer attacking her, which could only mean…

She hit the ground hard, easily breaking several bones in her body, and Naruto was on top of her again. This time, he held her against the ground with his weight, throwing blow after blow at the girl below him. He seemed to be yelling something, but all she could hear past the ringing in her skull was the dull pounding concussive blows he was landing to her head.

For some reason, he let her get back up, but before she could react, he launched another barrage of kicks at her. She fell to the ground, coughing blood up into her mask.

He once again let her stand up before landing a snap kick to her chin, shattering the ceramic mask she wore and sending her flying back.

He once again ran towards her, but stopped dead once he saw her face. "H-Haku?", he said.

"I- *cough* I'm sorry, Naruto.", Haku said. "It looks like… you protected your precious people." She started violently coughing up blood before she stopped and fell to her knees in front of him, blood flowing from her mouth and nose in a steady, though small, flow. "G-Goodbye, Naruto-san.", she whispered, falling on her face.

"No!" First Hinata, now Haku. Why did people keep dying around him? "No! You can't die Haku! No!"

He flipped her onto her back, trying to check for a pulse, but she was dead. This wasn't a near-death state, this was the real thing. '_I-I did this?_', he thought, looking at her face, somehow peaceful, even with blood coating much of the lower half. '_No, she can't… I didn't…_'

But the proof was in front of him, in the form of the smiling girl with blood coating her face. He screamed; an inhuman scream of agony and pain. He screamed for Hinata, for Haku, all the casualties of this stupid game of you-hurt-me-I'll-hurt-you. He vowed to himself then, he wouldn't let people die like this; in this stupid way of life, the 'ninja way', in all of this pointless waste of life.

"Haku.", he whispered simply. Suddenly the mist faded; the caster of the technique was dead. Naruto looked behind him to see Kakashi, who had run his hand clean through Zabuza's chest, destroying his heart. He looked about as happy as Naruto was at the outcome of his own fight.

Suddenly, Naruto heard the sound of somebody clapping.

"An admirable job.", Gato said, looking at the two defeated ninja. "Thanks for taking care of them for me; that means I don't have to pay the ridiculous fees they were trying to charge. Not that I was going to anyways." He then turned to the group of people with him "Attack them!"

He had an army behind him, a large group of mercenaries wielding whatever weapons they could find. Naruto saw some with swords, but most of them had knives, kunai, or just their hands.

Naruto was literally seeing red. This man, if he could even be called that, just showed complete disregard for everything he went through. He insulted him; he insulted Haku and Zabuza, _all_ the ninja on the bridge. But even more than that… he was planning on betraying them even if they _did_ win. That was simply inexcusable, to betray your comrades like they were nothing more than trash.

"Shut up!", he heard himself yell. "Actually, you know what, you'll all be dead in five minutes; make as much noise as you want."

Then everything went black.

(With Kakashi)

Kakashi had just pulled his hand free from Zabuza's corpse when he heard Gato start talking. It angered him, just as much as it had angered Naruto, if not more. He was considering killing the midget himself when he heard Naruto.

"Shut up!", he heard Naruto yell. "Actually, you know what, you'll all be dead in five minutes; make as much noise as you want."

That worried him slightly. He knew Naruto was not one to say things like that, even if he _could_ back them up. It didn't matter what he thought about him thought apparently, because Naruto had just started running towards the group of mercenaries, an eerie red glow surrounding him.

Gato was quickly trying to turn back and retreat through the group of men with him. He had to admit, the man clocked a pretty good speed for having those short little legs of his.

Naruto meanwhile, was cleaving through the army with impunity, holding his arms out to either side of himself. Somehow, whatever he was doing, he managed to simply run straight through people, using his arms as blades. He would run past someone, in a way reminiscent of someone clotheslining another person, and his arm would simply go _through_ them. A half-second later, their heads would usually fall to the ground, if not also their shoulders. Kakashi had to admit it was a pretty neat technique.

Naruto was making good time running through the crowd. Much better than Gato in fact; he caught up to the midget in only fifteen seconds. The small man turned around to see Naruto staring at him, his red, slitted eyes piercing into his _soul_…

"What do you want!", Gato yelled. "I can get you anything! Money, power, women, drugs, what is it!"

Naruto seemed to grow a tail, a chakra appendage forming at the base of his spine. Then a second joined it, along with a third and fourth soon after.

"**What I want, you can't give me.**", Naruto said, his voice oddly distorted. "**But you can give me something else.**"

"What is it?", Gato desperately yelled.

"**The location of your base.**", Naruto answered

"I-it's near the main port we use to bring goods in. Big, four story building, you can't miss it!", Gato yelled.

"**Thank you.**", Naruto said.

Gato visibly sighed, just a split-second before two of the tails behind Naruto were forcefully run through his body. He died almost immediately, blood pouring out of the multiple fist-sized holes in his torso.

Naruto simply threw the body into the water, where it floated face-down, lifeless; staining the water red around it.

"**Who's next?**", Naruto said, getting into a stance with both his arms and legs on the ground. He ran back into the crowd, using his tails in a way similar to his arms earlier, easily cleaving through the people surrounding him. Before any of the mercenaries' attacks could reach him, one of his tails would either stab through their body, often ending up with a body impaled on it, or it would cut them in half. It made for quite the bloody sight.

Kakashi was now starting to seriously worry about his student. He was fine now, while he seemed to be taking his frustration out on the group of mercenaries. What he worried about was if Naruto would try to attack his allies once he ran out of enemies.

In the meantime, Naruto had quickly reduced the number of mercenaries, having killed nearly a quarter of the group. The remaining ones were gathered into a dense grouping in hopes the berserker couldn't hurt them, but it only made things worse, allowing Naruto to take out more of the group at once. Strafing the group, Naruto would use his tails to attack the people on the edge of the circle, before they could do anything to him.

In the face of their rapidly-diminishing numbers, the remaining mercenaries were seriously starting to get scared. And this was a _twelve year old_. It was quickly becoming obvious why jinchuuriki were often referred to as 'army-killers'.

Some of the mercenaries started breaking rank, trying to run back towards the edge of the bridge, but they were showed no mercy, killed almost immediately after leaving the group, an orange blur all that was visible of the… _thing_… that had killed them. Apparently, someone in the group of mercenaries had gotten a good idea, because the whole group was moving towards one end of the bridge. That is, they _were_. Before they could get very far, a crossbow bolt was sticking through several of them, courtesy of a group of villagers on the end of the bridge. Sasuke and Inari were at the forefront, Inari shouting something to the group of mercenaries.

'_Oh shit!_', Kakashi thought, running to Naruto to make sure he would not attack the villagers. When he got there, he was sure what he saw managed to knock several years off of his lifespan, assuming he lived that long.

Naruto was covered in blood from head to toe, nearly all of it belonging to the mercenaries he had been steadily killing. That wasn't even the worst part though. He was _laughing_. He was apparently enjoying himself, even as his skin was slowly being burned off and regenerated, he was enjoying it!

A wide, feral grin broke out on Naruto's face. "**Oh, finally a strong one!**", he yelled, standing up to look at Kakashi. He started laughing even harder; a maniacal laugh that left absolutely no doubt that the person laughing was utterly insane. "**Well, what are you waiting for, come on! No? Okay, but don't say I didn't let you attack first.**"

Naruto ran at him as fast as he could, which was very fast. In fact, it was nearly **S****hunshin**** (Body Flicker)** speeds. Unfortunately for Naruto (who Kakashi was starting to doubt was really Naruto), Kakashi was faster. Even without the sharingan, _this_ Naruto's brawl-ish fighting style left much to be desired in the way of fighting against a skilled opponent. With the sharingan, it was simply no contest. Kakashi easily deflected Naruto's strike, causing the blond to laugh even harder, something Kakashi would have thought impossible even seconds ago.

That wasn't to say this 'Naruto's' fighting style didn't _work_. He had both the strength and speed required to neglect form, as demonstrated by Kakashi's stinging arm. '_Wait, that's not stinging, that's…_' Actually, it was the blood-red chakra left by Naruto's attack slowly attempting to eat away at his arm, leaving a strong burning sensation in the place it was consuming. Kakashi wasn't sure how to get rid of it either. It didn't seem to have a real _form_, it just… hovered… around his arm, like some strange and corrosive gas.

'_I need to end this quickly!_', Kakashi thought, watching Naruto laugh as if he simply didn't _care_ about anything. Kakashi strongly doubted anything short of a mortal wound would stop Naruto the way he was now. Naruto simply stood there, waiting for him to make a move.

So Kakashi did. He drew a kunai, quickly attempting to slash Naruto across the chest. Naruto dodged, leaning backwards at an angle Kakashi thought might've broken his spine, though you couldn't really tell the way he simply stood there, folded over backwards, his head touching the back of his legs. He slowly stood back up vertically, laughing even as blood dribbled from his mouth.

"**That's the best you can do? Ha!**", not-Naruto yelled. "**That's pathetic Kakashi. What, too scared to hurt your own student? I'm not Naruto, fight me all-out!**"

Well, that answered Kakashi's doubts about if that… _thing_ was Naruto.

"**Fight me Hatake!**", Naruto yelled. His grin grew impossibly wider as a fifth tail joined the rest behind him. He used one of tails to reach towards Kakashi, the appendage gaining length as it moved towards him. "**Yes! Give me … power!**"

Kakashi was forced to dodge; how could he fight against something incorporeal? Even so, another tail, then another, kept reaching towards him, forcing him to evade.

"**I said fight me!**", not-Naruto yelled, getting angrier. "**FIGHT!**"

He sprouted another tail, and Kakashi realized that he really _was_ going to have to fight Naruto seriously at this pace. He couldn't let him unlock all of the kyuubi's power, he had no idea what would be left of the _country_ around them if he did, not even mentioning all the people directly in the line of fire.

Kakashi ran towards Naruto at near-shunshin speeds, which Naruto matched, blocking Kakashi's kunai with his arm, the blade hardly making a dent in the now nearly corporeal chakra surrounding him.

"**Come on, you can do better than that!**", he yelled. "**I told you before, DON'T GO EASY ON ME!**"

The beast that now hardly bared a resemblance to Naruto lifted Kakashi in the air using a tail, using it to choke the life out of the jonin, who disappeared in a puff of smoke.

'_I need to end this!_', Kakashi thought. He would only have one shot; fighting Zabuza was no easy matter, even without Zabuza's signature weapon, and he only had one **Chidori (One Thousand Birds)** left in him. He used the opportunity created by the shadow clone to charge up the technique, trying to steel himself to be able to use the jutsu on one of his students. "**Chidori**!", he yelled, running towards Naruto from behind.

Naruto barely managed to turn around before Kakashi had run his hand through his chest, destroying part of his heart. Even so, he managed to cut Kakashi with the tips of several tails before succumbing to unconsciousness.

'_Naruto, I hope you survive this._', Kakashi thought, pulling his arm out of Naruto's chest, before he, too, fell to the ground next to his student, literally out before he hit the ground.

**~~~•∞•≈•≤ ≥•≈•∞•~~~**

**Wow, ****over 8,3****00 words in ****W****ord, easily a new record for me, and I cut stuff **_**out**_** of this chapter hoping to shorten it some (like Zabuza vs. Kakashi fight, which went similarly to canon, except Zabuza used a different sword). Don't worry, the parts that matter will make an appearance next chapter, but I couldn't tell you what they are **_**now**_**, could I?**

** I wanted to get this out Saturday, and by golly I did! Barely, at almost 11:45, but it took longer to wrap up than I thought, at 5,000 words even before the real fight started.**

** Review or the Giant Fox of DOOM™ will get you. I'll even put out the name(s) of whoever can guess what characters inspired Naruto's 'Berserker' mode. (Hint – Look at the way he fights, specifically dodges; especially in future fights)**

** Okay, time to end this thing. Good night, and Bitshoptyler out!**


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